Unbecoming
by kaze no akatsuki
Summary: What happens when you put a big mind in a small box? A tiger in a cage with lambs? A demon in a room full of exwires? Lucifer wants to find out. Boredom is a demons constant companion, but even Mephisto can only take so much. How long before the demon loses it? A game of wills, wits, and psychological pressure has begun. In the game of chess, only one king can win. Checkmate.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello my lovely readers.**

 **This takes it's root in the manga-verse – if you don't happen to know who Lucifer et al are, then I don't recommend you continue. This is not rooted into the plot, as most of my fics are, but...well, just think of it like a chapter extra. A very _dark_ chapter extra. **

**I am not super good at keeping Rin in character all the time, but I will try. Do forgive any mistakes or OOC moments.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I don't own these characters, except my own OC's (of which there are few) and I'm not sure I would want them either, because in my hands no one would be who they are in cannon and would actually align with demonology on the matter.**

 **WARNING: There's some dark stuff in here: Demon/amimalistic predation, themes of cannibalism and human-eating, sacrificial lambs, claustrophobia, survival instincts, vampirism, psychological torture, intense angst and more. I put this under horror for a reason, people. Read at your own risk.**

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 **CH I: _What happens when you put a large mind in a small box?_**

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 _"He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be_ ** _sure_** _that he was not." ~ The Masque of Red Death_ , Edgar Allan Poe.

The mission from HQ was an arduous one. And unfortunately, Mephisto Pheles did not like doing arduous tasks.

"Why did they have to send me?" He whined under his breath, trudging through the blanket of snow beneath him. It was the middle of January, and it was frigid even by his standards, enough so that once the wind caught speed enough to permeate his clothes, even _he_ wanted to shiver.

"You are here because there's been Illuminati activity in the area, and I won't chance getting away from them twice with all of us intact if we don't have a more powerful demon on our side." Yukio replied curtly. Mephisto glanced over at his student-teacher, taking in through his posture that he was even more uncomfortable with the chill than the demon was, even though he was the only one present in the group of exwires who hadn't complained about it. He had to smirk at the idea. Shiro had taught the boy well to conceal his weaknesses, even though doing so made him one of the weakest among them in his state of mind.

It was both tragic and funny to the demon.

"I understand the logic, but I don't feel it's necessary."

"Then clearly you don't understand it." Shura barked at Mephisto, walking behind him positioned at his flank. "Quit whining and do your job like the rest of us for once, ya lazy demon."

"You know, you're only cute when you don't talk." Mephisto muttered, a little insulted. "Besides, I had my active time already. What do you think Shiro and I went around doing?" At the forming smirk on Shura's face, he quickly cut in, "Don't answer that."

"Well, you asked." She snickered. Mephisto frowned.

"I forget sometimes that you and my dad used to be partners." Rin, positioned at the rear of their convoy, piped in. "It always catches me off guard whenever you guys talk about him like that."

"Yes, well you weren't quite as aware of his job as Yukio I suppose." Mephisto commented. "Of course, that was to keep you out of danger, since you inherited Satan's flame. There was no telling at the time if the Koma sword would hold your power at bay forever, and it was just too dangerous to have you flaming up unexpectedly around unaware exorcists."

"Yeah, I know that." Rin replied. "Yukio already explained that to me after the old man died." Rin said somberly. A long silence, interrupted by the crunches of feet in the snow, followed.

"So, where exactly are we going?" Izumo broke the silence after a time.

"There was some reported activity further north. We should be there by dark."

"Dark? Here?" Shima replied, looking frightful. "In the middle of a creepy forest? No thank you."

"Well then I suggest you walk faster, if you don't want to be stuck here –" Mephisto paused mid-speech, stopping altogether. An alert expression was on his face, making everyone else stop too.

"What is it?" Suguro whispered, situated nearest to Mephisto and standing directly behind him. The demon lifted his head, sniffing the air carefully, ears pricked for any subtle sound.

"I believe we have been found, my students." He said, glancing around them warily. "Prepare yourselves."

"There'll be no need for that, Samael." A masculine voice said from in front of them, where lied a subtle hill that none of them had noticed in the blinding whiteness. The sound of crunching footsteps preceded the sight of a tall man dressed in a black coat walking towards them from over the crest of the hill, dragging in tow four other people who all wore hoods to conceal their faces, also draped in black.

"My name is Gray. I promise you this will go much easier if you don't resist or try to fight us."

 _'Resist?'_ Mephisto wondered curiously.

"Like hell we're gonna go down easy!" Rin shouted, hand on his sword. Yukio went as if to reprimand him, but Mephisto beat him to it, raising a halting hand.

"No need to be so aggressive, Rin." Mephisto stated calmly. Sensing some change in the older demon's demeanor, Rin wisely stayed put. "Let us see what they want first."

"A wise move on your part, Samael." Gray replied smoothly as his own convoy fanned out to his sides, creating a blockade. He lived up to his name, with short silver hair planted mostly vertically atop his head, his long face and graying stubble betraying his middle-age.

"I take it you are Lucifer's new play toy?" Gray was unamused at the jab, frowning deeply.

"I am a newer recruit of the Illuminati, yes." The tall man responded. "But I am no less valuable to Lucifer-sama, which is why I am here."

"Can I safely assume he sent you because of me?"

"Yes – and no." Mephisto cocked a curious head at this. "Lucifer does not normally send me into the field, but for you it was a bit of an exception. However, you are not what he wants, precisely." Gray explained, a strange, twisted smile on his face. "He has forbid me from trying to kill you, however, so I would prefer you all cooperate." Rin went to act out again, and once more Mephisto's hand stopped him.

"To what end?" The demon asked curiously. He knew his older brother – knew him well. Lucifer was smart – very smart. Smarter, dare he say, than himself at times. His cleverness was his best and least beatable attribute, in fact – and that made Mephisto both wary and somewhat thrilled by the potential prospects laid before him.

"Well, ordinarily, it would be to your personal end," Gray said, a somewhat vicious tone lying beneath his too-toothy smile. "But as said, Lucifer-sama has forbade I try to kill you. He says you are too precious for that – a waste of familial sentiment if you ask me." _'Oh, it isn't sentiment that made him say that, though we were once very close. To kill me would ruin the effect of putting the king in check.'_ Mephisto almost smirked at his musing, causing Gray to stare at him, confused.

"What exactly is so amusing to you about this?"

"I know my brother well enough to know that he is as clever as they come, and one of the only demons able to trick me. I have to wonder, then, what the purpose of sending a human after me would be, considering my ranking."

"Because I am not your typical human." Gray replied, a carnivorous smirk on his face. Expecting something to happen, the group of exwires prepared for an attack – but had no idea just what they were fighting. Shiemi, who tagged along as medical support, suddenly collapsed at the back of the group.

"Shiemi? Shiemi?!" Rin cried, shaking her. She was incoherently moaning, and a trickle of blood from her nape said that she'd been struck by something.

"You –" Rin went to charge, but lost all control of his motor function, collapsing just like Shiemi had.

 _'What is going on?'_

One by one, the exwires fell as they tried to take action for their fallen comrades. Shura tried to make a break for it, but was utterly confused when Mephisto did not offer to follow her.

"Hey!" She called out to him. The demon hadn't moved, didn't even look like he had flinched. "What are you doing? We –" Shura felt something sharp hit her arm for a split second before she passed out, hitting the ground with a thud. Mephisto, or rather Samael, now stood alone.

"You hit them with glass needles while I wasn't paying attention – save for Shura, who had been safe behind me. I confess I am impressed." Samael gazed long at Gray, his stare unblinking and dangerously sharp.

"Now there's the trouble of you." Gray replied, nerve holding steady despite the unnerving stare. It was the look of a big cat right before it pounced on you, and it made the tall, lean man shiver. "You can either go with us easy, or have us use force to coerce you."

"Coerce me? My, you're smarter than you look." Mephisto mocked with a sarcastic smile, displaying his sharp canines for all to see.

"Indeed. It would be a foolish venture to assume a mere mortal could control the King of Time, the very God of chaos and mischief." Gray smiled wickedly. "However, I think we have a way to convince you." Gray snapped his fingers, and just like that, a large box appeared. It was massive and made of dark metal, resembling a safe in appearance – and, disturbingly, resembling something of Samael's own possession.

"Open it." Gray ordered. One of his convoy, the smallest of them, walked in front of the box and began chanting, a chant Mephisto immediately recognized as one of his own making. For the first time in a long time, he felt his heart sink into his stomach.

The box opened up a previously invisible door, swinging open to confirm Mephisto's fear. Inside, wrapped tightly in chains, was his little brother Amaimon.

"Word has it that Amaimon has is something of a special case for you, or indeed a special case in general." Gray said, ignoring the killer glare the older demon sent his way. "He stumbled into our base by sheer accident a few days ago. Lucifer-sama has been treating him very well, all things considered – however, unlike you, I _do_ have permission to kill _him_ , if I must."

"And what do you suppose that will accomplish?"

"Oh, I think you'll want to save him." Gray replied confidently. "After all, the queen is a very valuable piece on the board. Wouldn't want to sacrifice it too soon, when you never know if you'll get a clear shot at trading it out, would you?*" _'Damn Lucifer. He knows me too well. He even knows Amaimon's position – but then, he is rather influential...I wonder if he got any information out of Amaimon. My little brother may not be the brightest of us siblings, nor the strongest, but he's as stubborn as the rocks he manipulates. He's also got a surprisingly complex honor code – he wouldn't betray me willingly, in any case...He's right, anyway. The Vatican would never authorize me to revive Amaimon if his body died, and with the investigations going on, I can't risk doing it in secret either. Damn it all!'_

"And just what are you planning on doing with them?" Mephisto nodded towards his comrades, who he mentally noted could be hypothermic by now.

"Oh, fear not, they won't be harmed – not by us, anyway." Mephisto glared suspiciously at Gray, not at all liking the triumphant gleam in his eye. But there wasn't much he could do this time except play along.

"Alright, I'll go with you, no trouble, no questions asked – however, I have one condition." Gray's smirk became a frown. "And that is?"

"That at some point during this ordeal, I am allowed to speak to my older brother. I have a few choice words for him, as it were."

"Normally I'd say no, but you happen to be in luck today, because Lucifer-sama wanted an audience with you himself – hence why we are taking you in." _'I have to play my hand very carefully. If I make the wrong move, they all could die.'_ "Is that so?"

"But first, we have to take a few precautionary measures – surely you understand why." Gray stated, pulling out a specialized pair of hand-cuffs. Mephisto recognized them as the type exorcists used to detain demons for questioning, almost laughing at the idea of wearing them himself.

"Do as you must. I will not struggle."

"Good boy." Mephisto's glare grew stronger. He did not like this man at all.

Expecting the cuffs to affect him but only minimally, Mephisto gasped sharply when the cuffs were put on him, suddenly feeling very light-headed. The cuffs worked by suppressing and diverting a demon's energy – something Mephisto had enough of that it shouldn't have mattered if such a small sealing device was placed on him. However, it seemed as though the clever Lucifer thought this through – the cuffs were marked with different runes, upon inspection. They were now powerful enough to temporarily restrain even Samael's power – but only temporarily.

"Ah, clever brother. You used demon magic on these cuffs, didn't you?" Mephisto gasped, swaying on his feet. The sudden diversion and trapping of his energy was making him weaker than he liked.

"Come. You will be freed of them soon."

 **Mwahahahahahaha, the tale has just begun.**

 **Now for something I haven't used in a long time, and one of my favourite words to say-**

 **ASTERISKS!**

 ***Queen on a chess board:** This is a reference to, obviously, chess, in which the queen is one of the strongest pieces. The queen is also the most vulnerable piece for her strength, because there is only one queen and the other player (if they are wise) will often try to take out the opponents queen first. The reason the queen is so powerful is because it is the only piece that can both move anywhere on the board and move any distance. She is the ultimate attack piece capable of doing everything (except jumping) that any other piece can do. Because of her value, an experienced player will seldom use the queen unless the rest of the board is mostly clear, and focus her attacks on the bishops (which move diagonally) or king. As for the "exchange" part, there is a move in chess whereby you can trade your pawn for any other piece you have already lost (except another pawn) if it reaches the other end of the board. The queen, because of her value, is the most commonly traded piece for a pawn, especially as the queen is often lost quickly once she is played.

Oh, and before I go – while reviews are not necessary, they are nice. Constructive criticism welcome on all fronts, too.

Whelp, I've said my piece (haha, get it?) with that, I bid you adieu!


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello, hello!**

 **Thank you to my reviewers – you were very kind indeed. :)**

 **Anyway, it's been a while, so let's get on with this show shall we?**

 **OH, also, forgive my stylistic errors last chapter. didn't like my page-breaks.**

 **Also, I forgot Konekomaru! *Facepalm* I promise that he was there the whole time, I just forgot to mention him!**

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 **CH II: _I am as I am, not as I might be_. **

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" _...thou profoundest Hell,_

 _Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings_

 _A mind not to be changed by Place or Time._

 _The mind is its own place, and in itself_

 _Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven."_

– _Paradise Lost_ , John Milton

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Mephisto woke to a throbbing in his skull, pounding in rhythm with his unusually fast heartbeat. His chest felt tight, and there was a distant, dull ache in the pit of his stomach. He sucked in a deep breath, and felt a sticky fluid catch in his lungs, making him want to cough. His senses came back to him one by one, becoming aware of his body lying on a cold, hard surface. There were sounds around him, quiet breathing and slow, but steady heartbeats. He counted each one. _'I'm with my team. That's good – but where, exactly, am I? And when did I lose consciousness?'_

"Look, he's waking up." Yukio whispered. He had the voice of one in pain and trying to hide it. Had he been injured? Where? How? "No, give him his space. He might be disoriented." Mephisto hadn't even caught another person saying anything, but didn't exactly trust his senses to be a hundred percent functioning right now.

He tried to stir, to open his eyes, and was blinded by a bright light reflecting off a metal surface. Blinking away the after-images, he looked about himself, only to determine that he was in a cell, of sorts – except it had no bars. Or doors. Or any way to escape, really. Just steel – walls and walls of solid, buffed steel, with one bright light shining from a lamp overhead. Looking around further, he spotted a tiny, shining bit of circular glass in one corner of the room – a camera, no doubt.

Mephisto rose carefully from his position on the floor, for the first time getting an idea of how big the space was – which wasn't very, since his feet nearly touched an unconscious Rin even sitting up, and, looking over to where he'd been lying, he surmised the nearest wall to be less than half a meter from his head. The space was small enough as it was , maybe two meters by three – but the half-conscious bodies of his students, packed against the wall opposite him, save for Rin, made it seem that much smaller.

"Are you alright?" Shura's quiet voice reached Mephisto's ears. His head was throbbing still, and the bright lights were not helping.

"My head hurts pretty badly," He said, rubbing it to check for injury, of which he found none. "But I think I am fine otherwise."

"You think?" Yukio asked, clearly more wary than concerned.

"I am not feeling very well overall to be honest," Mephisto felt that sticky feeling in his lungs return, coughing involuntarily. To his surprise, no blood came up, but rather a whitish mucus he'd never known his body to have problems with. He tried to move more, to at least kneel, but his strength wouldn't hold him, and he barely caught himself from collapsing entirely. He felt so weak. And nauseous.

"Hey, don't go getting sick on us now. There's no place for it to go but to stay in here. I know, I already looked for escape routes. This place is a fortress for a prison cell."

"It's probably made to contain things like me as opposed to humans like yourself." Mephisto explained, sounding as fatigued as he felt. "I have a feeling that is why I feel as weak as I do. There's an enchantment on this place to keep me from using my power to escape."

 _"Bingo."_ A voice suddenly sounded in the room, loud enough to stir the others slowly awake. They all groaned in confusion, taking a moment to get their bearings. Mephisto recognized the voice of his captor, Gray.

" _You have it just right, Samael. You and your little brother won't be able to use your power much in there. Oh, try if you will, but you'll only hurt yourselves. See, we were very cautious indeed, and placed energy markers in your abdomens."_ That explained the dull ache. **_"_** _If the reader inside registers that you are putting out too much energy, it will release a seal that binds your power even tighter. If your energy level drops to zero – oops! No more demon._ Permanently. _"_ Mephisto sucked in a breath. This was not going to be very fun.

" _As for escape, don't even think about – Oh! L-Lucifer-sama!"_ Mephisto heard the microphone of the intercom, hidden behind the plates of welded steel that made up the walls, change hands.

 _"Little brother Samael."_ Lucifer began ** _._** _"I realize the situation you are in is not ideal – were there any other way of making you behave, I would not have had to resort to this...extreme, measure of control."_

"You can not control me, and you know it – just as you know that when I get out of here, you are going to pay dearly for what you are plotting." Mephisto snapped back, glaring at the camera.

" _But I believe I can, in fact, convince you to do things you would not otherwise be inclined to do. That is rather my gift, if you recall."_

"Always one to play mind-games. What is it you want?" Mephisto asked, irritated by the suppression he could feel on his energy, like a cloud of fog at the back of his mind.

" _Listen well, for I will only tell you once."_ Lucifer began. Mephisto looked around him to be sure everyone was awake and listening, for he really didn't care for repeating things either.

 _"I do not wish death upon you, Samael, understand that going into this. I would also have preferred not to hurt you if that had been possible – but you have made it clear that you will not stay out of my way unless I force you out of it. For that, I say you have brought this on yourself – but I also apologize in advance for what you will be subjected to."_

"What's he talking about? Subjected to what?" A murmur went across the team of exorcists.

"Quiet." Mephisto shushed them, paying attention to where the sound was coming from. The intercom speaker seemed to be behind the camera, but there was no way of telling exactly where.

" _You are a clever demon, Samael. But that will, unfortunately, become your undoing in this place. The cell I have put you in is indeed meant to hold a demon – but more than that, it is specifically designed to restrain_ you _. " _Lucifer explained. _"You can not use your demon powers inside of it – no teleporting, and no summoning or conjuring. You can manipulate time, if you like – but it will make the seal inside of you react, causing your spiritual self real harm. Besides which, I am a demon too.I have all the time in the world to wait._

 _"You may escape, however, by one simple way."_ All eyes and ears turned towards the hidden intercom in the corner. _"But I am afraid your team of exwires must die in order to do it."_

" _L-lord Lucifer-sama, not to be rude, but isn't giving him a way out unwise?"_ Gray asked nervously.

" _To leave him in there without it would be much less wise. As I said, I wish not to see my brother dead. But he will have to suffer a bit if he is to stay out of my way."_

"How do I get free? And who has to die?" Mephisto asked in a too-casual air, alarming his teammates considerably.

"Mephisto!" Rin chided.

"Hush boy." The older demon chided, flicking a dismissive hand at his littlest sibling.

" _I am glad you seem so cooperative."_ Lucifer replied, though there was a hint of sarcasm in his voice. _"The meter inside that activates the seal is nullified by human energy – but only the purest, rawest form of it will suffice."_ Mephisto nodded in understanding, a wry, toothy smirk coming onto his face.

"Is that how we are going to play the game, big brother? My, I didn't think someone like you would be interested in witnessing such a _bloody_ spectacle." Mephisto's voice dripped with venomous sarcasm.

" _I don't have any interest in that, per-say._ "Lucifer replied. _"However, watching_ you _, my rival, come completely undone –_ that _would be something interesting to observe."_

"You bastard!" Rin cried, shaking an already trembling fist at the intercom, the camera. "You want him to kill us all, don't you?"

" _I believe I have already said that, yes._ " Lucifer, holding his patience, replied.

" _He may be an exorcist and live among humankind – but he is still a demon on the inside. Locked in a cage full of human mortals, how long do you think he is going to stay sane?'_ Gray said, an eerie laugh drifting through the unseen speakers. _"You're all exorcists, right? Then tell me, what is the default diet of a carnivorous demon?"_ A quiet unrest swept the small crowd of exwires as Shura, Bon, the half-conscious Konekomaru and Yukio in particular gave Mephisto a hard and uneasy stare. Gray's laugh echoed in the room, sparking Rin into action. However, as soon as he, unconsciously, began to flare up, a crippling pain shot through his abdomen like a bullet.

"GaaaAAAHH!" Rin cried out loud, clutching his stomach as he doubled in on himself.

"Rin!" Shiemi called, rushing beside him.

"Moron! Don't use your demon powers, or it will kill you!" Yukio reprimanded harshly.

" _Fufufu...As for that one,"_ Gray chuckled, insinuating Rin. _"He will either eat or be eaten. One of the two. **"**_ A resounding _click_ signaled a disconnect from the intercom – however, Mephisto still suspected they were listening. A long silence then followed, broken only by Rin's groans of pain.

"Hold still!" Shiemi demanded, keeping Rin still long enough to examine his stomach. Once his shirt was pulled aside, it became evident he'd had a minor operation to implant something into his abdominal cavity.

"Ow," Rin complained, sitting up despite Shiemi's protests. "That really freakin' hurt. Guess he wasn't kidding about putting something in us."

"You dolt! What were you thinking, trying to flare up in a place like this anyway? Do you want us all to become fried?!" Bon criticized.

"I have more control than that! I managed not to burn anyone in Kyoto! And I didn't burn Shiemi that one time we ended up falling through a monastery together."

"You did WHAT?"

"Oh, shut up, all of you." Mephisto snapped, rubbing his temples. The headache was moderately more bearable, but still made him agitated. "This is hardly the time for it anyway." He looked back to the camera, thinking. He did take notice, however, of the silence that befell the room. ' _Great. Now they have a whole new reason to distrust me. But, I guess it can't be helped.'_

"What are we going to do?" Izumo piped up. She was remarkably calm for the situation, Mephisto noticed. Almost as if she thought Lucifer was bluffing. "We probably don't have any devices on us to contact help with, and even if we did, I don't think we would make it until backup arrived."

"She's right." Yukio agreed. It was then that Mephisto noticed that Yukio was holding his shin a bit awkwardly. So he _was_ injured. "The Vatican knows we are in the Hokkaido area, but even we don't know exactly where we are anymore. Humans can only go three days without water, and after a week or so without food our bodies will begin eating themselves in order to survive. In the long term, it would take us about three weeks to be so starved as to be unable to move. By then some of us might even be dead." Yukio glanced surreptitiously at Shiemi, who was the smallest member of their group.

"That's _if_ we don't get eaten first." Shima piped up. " I don't want to think Mephisto would, since he can live a long time without food, certainly longer than any of us." He added on hurriedly, sparing the demon a sympathetic glance. "But if push comes to shove, just know _I_ will eat you if I have to."

"Oh, stop it Shima." Konekomaru, who had been entirely silent for most of their trip, finally spoke up. "I don't want to think about getting eaten by anything, certainly not you." The boy had come to his senses last, and the drugs were making him jittery still.

"I'm not joking," Shima said seriously, eyeing Rin carefully to see his reaction. "If it means I don't starve to death, cannibalism is totally on the table for me."

" _If_ you aren't eaten yourself." Once more an eerie silence fell as Mephisto spoke. "Let us not forget, I am not the only one with a demon's appetite in here." He and everyone else eyed Rin.

"What? _Me_?" The half demon was taken aback. "I would never be able to eat my friends! Hell, I don't think I could even eat a human being!"

"Hunger can make a man mad, as they say. You have the instincts which make you a predator, even if you haven't used them yet, and the physique to munch through meat." Mephisto informed bluntly. "I, too, am made a carnivore more than anything – but alas, human food has some perks to it that I can't help but grow addicted to. The insane amount of sugar and salt being one of them."

"But, you will, like, _not_ eat us, right?" Shima seemed to plead with the demon. Mephisto stopped to ponder the matter.

"I can not guarantee that, unfortunately." The shock rippled over everyone's faces, though Yukio's expression only became a bitter frown. "As Gray said, I am a demon first and foremost. I have instincts and impulses you simply do not – and as I grow weaker in body, so I will grow weaker in mind." Mephisto cautioned, supporting himself on his hands as he leaned back on them. "I can go a long while between meals, that is true – but while I consider my self-control to be superior to that of many of my siblings, I must confess it isn't impeccable."

"So, what, you're seriously going to try eating them?" Rin asked incredulously. He stood up, becoming a wall between the older demon and his human friends. "Over my dead body!"

"Funny you should say that, actually." Mephisto replied coolly. A little _too_ coolly. "If anyone here is going to be eaten first, or at least killed, it will probably be _you_." A smile full of dagger teeth was both a threat and a warning. In such a confined space, neither of them could afford a physical confrontation.

"As of right now, you are competition for resources – be those whatever they may. If it comes down to it, I have no qualms about killing you in the name of keeping myself alive." His pupils became deadly slits, his ears tilting themselves back. "Call it cruel, but I am demon before I am anything. Best you decide what you are, before _I_ end up deciding for you." The cold, clipped tone was not something Mephisto's students were accustomed to hearing from him, and so he could not blame them for the sense of surprise he felt radiating off them – except, as it were, for Shura.

"I always had a feeling you were an insensitive prick. Guess I was right." She mumbled, a humourless smirk on her face.

"It is not that I am insensitive intentionally, miss Kirigakure," Mephisto, satisfied that Rin had shrunken away from his intense stare, now addressed Shura almost casually. "I merely lack the emotional capacity of humankind. But you already knew that, didn't you?" A shadow crossed her face a moment before disappearing entirely, replaced by what was meant to be a reassuring look to her teammates. "Yeah, I know. Demons like you don't feel empathy the same way. Things like love and hate mean nothin' to ya. You aren't capable of either – not in the human way."

"That is correct." Mephisto affirmed. A long silence followed, though not as uncomfortable as those before.

"Demons are inherently selfish creatures whose purpose in life is like that of all others – to survive." The old demon voiced quietly. "I am no different. But then, are humans any better? Do they not also drag others down in order to bring themselves closer to victory, to power, to freedom?" He mused quietly, voice barely above a whisper. "And yet," Mephisto shrugged, voice growing louder. "You will all hate me because I am what I am."

No one rose to challenge that statement. It was too hard to say if it was true or not at this point.

"I am confused about one thing," Konekomaru muttered, though it might as well have been a shout in the deafening silence. "Lucifer said something about the purest energy. What did he mean by that?" Bon looked at his teammate sadly, appreciating his effort to break the tension. He also felt pity for his friend's innocence, which probably wouldn't last much longer in here. A long pause ensued after his question, those of them who knew hesitating to tell, and those who did not patiently expecting an answer. Finally, Shura broke the anticipatory quietness.

"You needn't concern yourself about it, Miwa." She reassured gently. "I think it's better you don't think about it too much." Understanding lit up his face for only a moment before a more melancholy expression took it's place.

Mephisto watched his students exchange glances, having silent conversations with each other, some comforting, others betraying the unease they all felt now – an unease that spread itself habitually onto the demon, who had for so long been taking and making his cues from these humans. _'I have a feeling that will change soon – and you, my elder brother, will have officially made my life Hell.'_

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 **AHHH! This took me forever to get down.**

 **So, updates might be sluggish cuz I am in college. However, I will try!**

 **And thank you again to my reviewer! Reviews are always welcome. :)**


	3. Chapter 3

**Aahhhh, this my friends is where things start to get ugly.**

 **Normally, I don't open with these, but this chapter earns it:**

 **WARNING: Some serious angst ahead. This is the part where it starts to get really horrorish.**

 **You are warned.**

 **This chapter will have 2 parts because it was just too long.**

 **Also, yes, this is a tale twisted from and inspired by the nightmarish horror stories of Poe, in case you should not have noticed it from all the quotes. :)**

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 **CH III: _The many tainted shades of ivory._ Part I**

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" _The night, tho' clear, shall frown—_

 _And the stars shall look not down_

 _From their high thrones in the heaven,_

 _With light like Hope to mortals given—_

 _But their red orbs, without beam,_

 _To thy weariness shall seem_

 _As a burning and a fever_

 _Which would cling to thee for ever."_

 _~ Spirits of the Dead, part III._ Edgar Allan Poe

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It was the end of the second day now.

Or, so Yukio thought. One thing about this room, this prison cell, this cage, that made it even remotely bearable was the fact they dimmed the lights at night – or so Yukio could infer, for the light was not the only thing that reduced. The temperature plummeted at night, leaving everyone forced to huddle for warmth in the cold, steel walls of this hellish room, which didn't appear to have any kind of insulation at all.

Well, everyone except Mephisto.

The demon seemed to have gone into a conservative trance of sort. He wasn't asleep, but didn't behave as if awake most of the time either, or even alive at times. He was, somewhat disturbingly, more awake and active at night, when the biting cold struck everyone to one side of the room, leaving him plenty to move about. He had, last night, paced feverishly but silently back and forth across the tiny, cramped space as though he were a tiger in a cage. In a way, that analogy wasn't totally wrong.

Yukio seen it, perhaps because of his experience, his lineage, or, more grossly, because he was injured – but he could tell that beneath the still, silent figure that lied now just barely breathing against the far wall lied a demon that was severely agitated and maybe even afraid. And one thing Yukio knew far too well, having lived with a half-demon as a brother his whole life, was that demons and animals acted much the same when they felt either of those emotions.

The exorcist shifted as Rin came up to him, curling around him for the second night in a row as the lights began to dim. Yukio watched cautiously as, almost as if by cue, the trance-like, ignorant state of their demon headmaster broke away, the demon opening his cat-like eyes with an almost-invisble nictitating membrane sliding over the cornea in an equally feline-like way. As he had the previous night, Mephisto merely sat there a while, waiting patiently for his students to fall asleep. Yukio shivered as the steel against his back grew colder, though it was counteracted by the warmth of his students as they slowly surrounded him and Rin, decidedly the warmest ones here.

He looked down at Shiemi as she curled up in Rin's lap, her legs crossing his. She was shaking like a leaf even before the temperature drop, and in his medical opinion looked to be quite unwell. He hadn't addressed the matter yet, but he was almost certain that she was on a very delicate, sliding slope aimed downhill. She was, after all, one of the thinnest of them, and the smallest. Just as the thought came into his head, he felt his throat ache terribly, the dry, cottony feeling of dehydration making swallowing feel like a thousand needles were going down his throat. He needed water. They all needed water, and none more desperately than Shiemi, who's skin was becoming flushed even as he pondered the matter. An intrusive, halting thought entered his mind with enough force to make his already sugar-deprived and dizzy head spin.

What if she didn't make it until morning?

She had been acting alright – or as alright as they all could be, given the situation. She had been quiet, but then they all were, none of them really feeling like conversation would help. Rin was the only one who really tried to ease the tensions, and even got Shiemi to smile today. But he knew enough about healing and medicine to know that her condition was deteriorating, and quickly.

 _'I wish I could take back what I thought earlier, about not all of us surviving to the three day mark. But then, I guess it can't be helped. She's pretty healthy, right? Even though she's skinny, she's pretty well-off. Maybe she will be okay – at least until tomorrow.'_ A rare, razor-edged wound opened up in his heart for her. He may not have the same feelings for her as Rin, but she was still one of his best friends. His heart ached, and with everyone else not paying him much mind at the time, he decided there wasn't much sense in keeping it off his face. Rin had been right by her side all day, and Yukio had a sense he knew something was wrong, too. But in the situation they were in, he hadn't said anything of it yet.

Yukio tensed suddenly. He should have known better than to expect his emotional irritations to stay to himself.

"She is not doing well." Mephisto, wide awake and looking utterly bored, whispered. He stated his observations as simply as that, without any real emotional inflection. Yukio stayed silent, a deep, primal fear creeping slowly up his chest and into his throat, protective anger just beginning to simmer beneath his stomach.

"You do well at that, you know – concealing your weaknesses." Mephisto remarked, turning physically towards Yukio as if they were having an ordinary conversation. "However, as I am sure you are very aware, I am far too old to be fooled. You yourself are not in much better shape, are you?" Again, Yukio remained deliberately silent. "You got hurt somehow in your transport here. I don't want to presume too much, but since it's not an open wound, I can guess that it's a bone-related injury yet again." Mephisto coughed lightly. "You sure do like breaking your bones, Okumura-san."

"It's not broken." Yukio breathed back, voice not even a rising whisper. "It's only a light fracture." Despite his voice having almost no volume, it still somehow carried with it a sense of tension and distrust.

"Ah, now, Yukio." The named exorcist focused a glare at the demon, who seldom used his first name like that. "You recall what Shiro taught you?" That primal fear from before now choked the young exorcist at the subtle, warning tone in the demon's voice. He watched, as if by sheer instinct, for clues and body language he didn't have a mental description of. He didn't even know what he was looking for, precisely, but the slight turn of the demon's ears, the tiny tilt that held them pinned closer to his skull – it was enough to send his heart pounding into his head and his stomach surging up his throat with some kind of dreadful anticipation.

"When among demons, particularly when in the company of those like me, you must watch yourself _very_ carefully." The demon warned lightly, not making direct eye contact – something which, rather than be soothing, made the exorcist more nervous. "Demons like me, carnivores, we are a predatory type. And what can you never do with a predator?" Mephisto's gaze now turned deliberately towards the exorcist, making him automatically find someplace else for his own eyes to settle. He knew the answer, and mentally berated himself for forgetting it. But he _was_ only human after all. It just happened that right now, he was having a hard time remembering that.

"...Act like prey." Yukio's voice was gone from the statement entirely, the sound just barely audible below his haggard breathing, which he hadn't even realized he was doing.

"That's right." Mephisto went on. "Because when you _act_ like prey, you _become_ prey."

Yukio tried, in vain, to still the shaking in his muscles. He wasn't shivering from being cold, far from. His fight or flight had been triggered without his awareness, making his body desperate to _do_ something, to run, to flee, to fight against this thing, this thing which he dare not name in his mind as his instincts wanted to, or else fall victim to their plight. A _predator_.

 _'There is a tiger sitting there against that wall, and we all are merely lambs. Don't be afraid! Don't act like it, at least. You flinch, you lose. You flinch, you lose. You flinch, you lose.'_ Yukio steeled his resolve, mentally chanting the words like a mantra. He had to stay calm. If no one else did, he had to. He _had_ to.

"Good boy." Mephisto praised mockingly, a slightly pained smirk coming onto his face. "I can go for months or even years without food, if I eat well at least once in that span." Mephisto mused quietly as if talking to himself. "I can go longer if I drink water on occasion." He mused. He turned his attention once more to Yukio, now pretending not to listen. "I don't like the idea of eating you, for the record. I don't particularly care for human meat. It's tough and bitter, and it's far too easy to obtain. It's cheap, from my perspective, and wholly in bad taste." Mephisto whispered with a hint of disgust – which, if Yukio were being honest, made him feel a touch better. "However, if one of you should perish through this ordeal, it would become dangerous very quickly. In such a small, poorly ventilated area, a body is going to decompose quickly and foully."

"So what you're saying," Yukio responded, feeling Shura shift against his shoulder. She was awake and listening too, he surmised silently. "Is that if one of us dies, you are going to eat them. To remove the corpse."

"Yes, more or less. There isn't much else place for it to go, and my digestive system can take a while to digest a single meal if I so wish it. My body recycles waste much more efficiently than a human's, so the issue presented of bodily waste encouraging diseases is greatly diminished."

"I hadn't even thought of that problem yet." Yukio agreed with surprising ease. "There is nowhere for anything to go – and even without food, the human body still produces waste that has to be removed somehow."

"I'm afraid I can't be of much use there." Mephisto stated flatly. "Cryptozoonotic disease often goes from my direction to yours more than the other way around. Unpleasant though it is, I really can not think of a way to avoid or handle the problem, for it's never really been one for me."

The conversation drifted away into silence. After a while, Yukio began to lightly drift into slumber, the warmth of his sibling and his friends soothing him. Shura, though awake moments ago, seemed to have fallen back asleep, her face tucked into his neck, her warm, even breathing providing for the exorcist some amount of solace. Rin leaned on his other shoulder, his arms wrapped around Yukio's waist. Bon's arm was situated against his hip, having wrapped unconsciously around Rin, into whose side he was pressed. Izumo and Konekomaru were on Shura's side, tucked together like kittens, with Shima curled into a ball on the other side against Bon.

The night dragged on into morning, with Yukio being awoken now and then by the rustling of his classmates and the tapping of Mephisto against the metal walls as he looked for some way out. As the light came back on, and everyone began to stir, Mephisto once more took his place upon the far corner, once more becoming statue-esque and half-dead.

However, moments after everyone had begun to lazily stir awake, a crackling came on over the intercom. The volume and unexpected noise made even Mephisto startle, drawing confused, dreary expressions towards the source of the sound.

" _Good Morning, exorcists."_ The cordial greeting was, unexpectedly, given by Lucifer. He waited a moment after his initial announcement for the remainder of them to stir into full consciousness. _"It has come to my attention that there are some of you who are rapidly declining in health. This, though not particularly consequential, could become potentially problematic."_ Confused expressions were exchanged all around, until everyone noticed that Shiemi had yet to fully awaken or stir.

"Shiemi?" Shura said in alarm. Rin held onto her still, and though wide awake, was dead silent. His expression was pained, though he didn't say a word. At the other's rapt attention he pulled her closer to his chest, hugging her tightly, protectively.

"Rin?" It was Bon who spoke his name, just above a whisper. Yukio, long aware of his sibling's moods, noticed the strain in his throat as he tried desperately not to cry.

"She is alive." He whispered tersely.

" _She is dying."_ Lucifer said, his tone strangely sympathetic. _"Even from this vantage point, I can see that."_

"Shut up." Rin growled lowly, baring his fangs vividly.

" _If you want her to survive, I advise you keep ahold of yourself little brother."_ Lucifer warned lightly. _"I will give you and your exorcists water, Samael – but only if you...take care of something for me."_

"Again with making deals?" Said demon sighed exasperatedly. "Then again, I suppose that's what we both specialize in, isn't it?" Mephisto smiled wryly. "What is it you want me to do?"

" _I want you to get rid of something for me – but first,"_ Lucifer said, sounds stepping away from the microphone.

Just then, there was a loud hissing sound of compression springs releasing. An invisible doorway opened up, just large enough for a person of average height to fit through. A dark figure approached, more like staggered, forward through the opening, causing everyone in the room to stand or else prepare for trouble.

However, once he came within the light's reach, it became obvious that this was a person they were all fairly familiar with, though none more so than Mephisto, who rushed forward to grab him as he staggered in.

"Amaimon?" Mephisto inquired with some mixture of alarm, surprise and relief. No sooner had said demon stepped into the room than the door slid quickly shut behind him, eliminating the possibility of escape. Amaimon staggered on his feet even standing still, looking dazed and not having any sense of proper balance. He went to fall, but Mephisto managed to catch him before he hit the ground, though his weight dragged the paladin down with him.

" _Uff,_ I forgot how heavy you were!" Mephisto complained, straining as he lowered his brother down slowly, nearly dropping him in the process. He then gave his sibling a tenative sniff – and let loose a deep, rumbling growl that began in his stomach and worked its way out with enough bass to cause his chest to visibly shudder. It was an alarming sound for the watching humans, or indeed anything that might have been listening, for in it was a sense of passionate anger. Mephisto's students watched on in varying amounts of surprise, most of which having never seen him angry. But he was definitely angry now, lips curling over his fangs as he looked up toward the camera.

" _My, my, so hostile."_ Lucifer said, a playful yet chastising note in his voice. _"I assure you it was consensual. He gave himself over to me of his own choice, likely as a means of appeasement."_ Mephisto let out another rumbling growl, though it wasn't as loud or intense as the first. Bon, personally, felt himself reel from the implication, and looking over to his friends and to Rin, he could tell he wasn't the only one.

"You know," Mephisto said, his voice threateningly calm after such an obvious indication of his feelings. "Seducing my baby brother is probably not the wisest choice you could have made if you want me to cooperate."

" _You did not claim him for your own. That is not my problem."_ Mephisto heaved a deep breath, letting it whoosh from his lungs, taking with it some of his irritation.

"Why did you send him back to me, now of all times?" Mephisto asked calmly, regaining his composure.

" _I have my reasons."_ Lucifer replied vaguely. _"As for your task, if you want water, you will have to take care of a little chore for me – and perhaps you might gain from it something, since you are under the impression I stole something from you."_ Mephisto huffed, knowing he was talking about Amaimon. _"He is under light sedation right now, but will be awake soon enough."_ As if on cue, Amaimon, half-conscious, let out a groan, sitting up with some effort.

"Aniki?" the younger demon mumbled, rubbing his eyes. "It's bright in here."

"I know." Mephisto responded, placing a hand on his sibling's shoulder when he went to fall over again. He looked toward the camera once more, sighing.

"Name your price."

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 **Next part will be MUCH longer, and have some legitimate gore.**

 **Until then!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Ahhhhhhhhhhh**

 **WARNING: There is probably the grittiest horror scene I have ever written in here as far as human-eating/cannibalism is concerned. And indeed, there are mentions of cannibalism. Normally, I try to be considerate and not be overly gory. But I decided to push myself a little outside my comfort zone on this one – that said, I don't like gore a lot, so it's not quite _Hacker_ movie level, but it's not what I typically write. There is also a very me-esque fight scene, which happens in typical me-style. So you get the best of both.**

 **Also, this is a LONG chapter, so take a break if you need to. (I will use ;;; rather than …. or ,,,,, for page breaks in which it is safe to take a break from reading and come back later. I just couldn't break it up into two more chapters – it would have ruined the flow.)**

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 **CHIII, pt. 2: _The many tainted shades of ivory_**

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" _I sleep all day,_

 _I prowl at night_

 _Do anything to feel alive-_

 _I'm in the end just what you made me._

 _I look the same,_

 _But I'm not fine,_

 _The master of my own disguise,_

 _If you knew the truth you'd probably hate me..._

 _I'm turning into a monster, you'd better run and hide..._

 _I'm turning into a monster,_

 _right before your eyes..."_

 _~ Monster_ Beth Crowley

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"Name your price." Mephisto said almost boredly, tired of this dragging on. Once again, the sound of compression springs releasing filled the room – but this time the panel moved, not from the wall, but the floor. In a presently vacant corner of the room a single, smallish panel slipped away, coming back up with something on it. Upon closer inspection, however, it was not a _something_ , but a _someone_.

"Nemu?!" Izumo remarked incredulously, recognizing the tiny, orange-haired kid. Mephisto, unsurprised, watched with a blank expression. "What is he doing here?" Shura said, moving to inspect him. He did not have his puppet, his medium for conversation, but then, he wasn't remotely awake either.

" _He is, for now, sedated. Strongly sedated."_ Lucifer explained. _"I suppose after Gray's show earlier, you are not surprised that one of your own has betrayed you, Samael."_

"Not hardly. No one else could know the binding spell I use to keep Amaimon under control."

" _Glad we are in agreement – which is why he has to die."_

"What?" Rin, silent until now, spoke up for the first time so far all day. "First you want us dead, now you want him dead? What the hell are you planning, Lucifer!" For once Mephisto did not stop him, merely watching.

" _He is going to die anyway."_ Rin paused at this, expression faltering. _"He is sick. Very sick."_ Lucifer explained. _"He has about two months left in him if medical treatments continued, which is why he came to me to begin with."_ A tinge of guilt coloured Rin's face, though even he didn't know why he felt it. _"But I have nothing left to offer him. His demon abandoned him, sensing his growing weakness, leaving him with nothing."_

"What about his parents?" Izumo asked. "What about my sister?"

" _They are alive, but have given up searching for him. Nemu ran away from home. He won't go back there, no matter how he is encouraged to."_ Izumo's face palled, almost not wanting to believe it.

" _The boy can not mentally function without his demon. He is...unstable, in a sense, if there is no external force to keep him grounded. Without the demon to protect him or speak for him, I have had no choice but to keep him in a deep sleep – but no demon will take him now. He is too weak."_

"So you decided to pull the plug on him." Yukio surmised, drawing all eyes to him. "But why put him in here? Why have Mephisto kill him? Why not do it yourself?"

" _Because I have far less need of the thing he keeps inside. The energy he keeps inside."_ Understanding dawned on the young exorcist's face, followed quickly by a frown of revulsion.

" _I strongly encourage you deal with him before he wakes up."_ Lucifer warned. _"Once your task is done, I shall give your humans the water they require – but no sooner."_ With that, the intercom disconnected with a click. A long, digestive silence followed.

"What are we going to do?" Shima announced. "We can't let him wake up – believe me, I've seen the nasty side of him. What Lucifer said is no joke – he will literally kill us if he wakes up."

"I believe you, for once, but only because I've heard of this happening before with special children." Izumo agreed, looking at Nemu worriedly. "No one knows why it happens, though."

"You are both correct. That boy will certainly kill you if he wakes without a demon to keep him controlled." Mephisto stated, hand on his chin as he thought.

"But we can't just kill him – right?" Rin said hopefully. Bon shook his head.

"I don't think we have a choice right now, Okumura." Bon said solemnly. "Lucifer hasn't given us much of a choice. Either kill or be killed."

"But..." Rin tried to protest, but couldn't come up with an effective counter. "But...he's our classmate..."

"I agree with you, Rin," Konekomaru stated. "But the situation being what it is, I also think Bon is right. Besides," He turned a wary eye onto the two full-blooded demons, apprehension making his empty belly ache.

Mephisto sat and pondered a moment, Amaimon becoming more awake as he did so, looking around him curiously.

"What will you do, big brother?" He spoke at last, looking over to Nemu. Mephisto let out a sigh.

"I guess there really is no other option." He said with a shrug. " I will have to do it. There is no other way."

"Mephisto!" Rin went on to try and rebute him, to come up with some valid reason not to kill the boy. But the only reasons he could come up with were ones of moral fiber, which meant nothing to the older demon. If he wanted to stop this, he had to argue on Mephisto's front – the logical front – which he, as a person, wasn't good at using.

By the time he had come up with anything, it was too late to change the demon's mind. Mephisto picked up the boy by his orange-red shirt, turning him to face him with an impassive expression.

"Mephisto, please – "

"If you don't want to watch, then turn away." The older demon snapped irritably at his youngest sibling. "There is nothing you can do to stop this if you don't want to die."

Rin didn't turn away, watching helplessly as Mephisto, in a rather unexpected move, latched his fangs onto the boy's throat like a vampire. And, like a vampire, he seemed to be swallowing the blood which flowed out, most of it going down that way. A few small rivulets escaped, trails of bright crimson falling like tears to the steel floor.

Amaimon, now wide awake, began to stir. He watched Mephisto drink the boy's blood, and judging by his expression, was interested in partaking. He moved, and once more the exwires watched helplessly as he tenatively crawled over to Nemu's paling body, reaching out with a cautious expression for the boy's arm. Mephisto growled menacingly at him, causing Amaimon to retreat quickly to the other side of the room, wary of being struck.

Konekomaru couldn't handle the sight – the idea of the two demons fighting over his classmate's corpse was too much for him to take. His stomach surged acid into his throat, and a frustrated and frightened tear slid down his cheek.

Mephisto only released the child's body once he was completely dead, his fangs making a sticky, wet popping sound as they released their prey. Blood stained the demon's lips and teeth, making him look utterly terrifying as he licked away the blood dribbling down his chin. Looking over at his students, he could tell they were all in varying degrees of shock or disgust – Rin looked angry as well as disgusted, but he could tell the anger wasn't directed at him.

He felt the seal inside him begin to weaken, and knew his window of opportunity would not be long. He moved away from Nemu's body, a subtle flick of his fingers leaving Amaimon to begin cleanup, which he took initiative of as soon as the older demon walked away. The traded places in the small room, Mephisto wondering what he needed to do.

"Miwa," Mephisto addressed his student, who looked up at him with frightened, teary eyes. Mephisto chose to ignore both these, addressing him in a nearly professional manner. "You are fairly good with technology, yes?" The question caught the young boy off guard, causing him to fish for a reply.

"Y-yes, sort of – why?"

"I don't have a lot of time to deliberate. The effects of the seal inside me will take root again soon. I don't have the energy to teleport, but I have just enough to conjure something small – a cell phone, maybe." This time, instead of wary stares, Mephisto got cautiously hopeful ones. "There likely won't be any signal in here, but if me, Amaimon, and Rin all went against that wall, where the intercom is," He gestured to the corner. "We may be able to open up the shell of the room and wire-tap something through."

"Oh – that's actually a good idea." Shura agreed for once. "Do you think you would know how, Konekomaru?"

"T-That depends on the wiring system in the intercom...but if it means we can contact someone, I think it's worth a try."

"But what about resources?" Shima argued. " I get that we are all going to die anyway if no one comes to get us, but we are in dire need of food and water – I, for one, don't really trust Lucifer to provide much of either."

"Hm? What are you talking about?" Amaimon chipped in. Shima turned to look at the demon and was immediately repulsed by what he seen. The earth demon's face was stained pinkish with blood, a surprisingly large portion of Nemu's neck now gone, down the demon's gullet. Shima wisely chose not to directly look at the exposed tissue, the white of the boy's trachea catching his periphery enough to make it clear just how much was gone. No doubt that's what Amaimon was referring to. "There's plenty of food here, if you aren't chicken enough to eat it. I could probably eat this whole kid by myself, but I don't think Aniki will let me have _all_ of it."

"You – you can't be serious!" Rin argued vehemently. "It's bad enough we had to watch him die – now you expect us to _eat_ him?"

"No one said _you_ had to."

"You – " Yukio grabbed his brother's collar as he went to charge at Amaimon.

"There's no room in here for confrontation!" He chastised. "Besides, if you attack him now, you will definitely die! Is that what you want, Rin? Do you want to die?"

"No!"

"Then stop being an idiot!"

"Enough, both of you!" Shura stepped between them, reminding herself that tensions _would_ be high, given the situation. "There's no time for that!"

"Eins...Zwei...Drei..." Mephisto conjured quietly. A sudden poof left a dangling pink cell phone in his hand – and the bulk of the energy he had planned on using gone. Konekomaru jumped when the object was tossed his direction.

"I have plenty more where that came from, so feel free to dismantle it as you see fit. It might just be the only thing that will get us out of here alive." Konekomaru nodded, a tired but determined look on his face despite the disgust he felt over what was happening in the other corner.

Once more, the hissing began. Another panel on the floor, located in a different corner, provided what was around a ten gallon jug of water atop a fitted table, with a small spicket attached to the bottom. The atmosphere of the room became conflicted in an instant, caught between hopeful, grateful, excited, disgusted and fearful.

"Water!" Rin, distracted, rushed up to the water jug, carefully inspecting it. "It doesn't smell like anything weird is on it." He announced. "There's enough here for everyone." He then turned his attention back to Shiemi, who was blearily awake, slumped against a wall like a rag. He moved over to her, cradling her once more.

"Look, Shiemi – there's water. You can drink." He reassured gently, shaking her lightly. She seemed to snap out of her stupor for a moment, blinking at him owlishly. "W-w..." She tried in vain to speak, but didn't have the moisture left to make sounds.

"Come on. I'll take you over there, okay?" Rin picked her up gently, handling her as if she were made of delicate glass. He carried her the few steps to the water, setting her just under the spicket.

"Do you think you can drink?" He asked, leaning down to see her eyes when her head lolled forward weakly. After a moment, there was a barely-perceptible shake of her head. Somehow, Rin understood, and placed a hand on the faucet.

"I...I know it isn't fair, but I can't help you drink if I don't drink first. My body won't let me." He explained. Shima was made to protest, but Bon jabbed him in the sides, knowing that she wouldn't be able to drink by herself at this point.

"Let him do what he has to do." Bon defended. "I might not like the guy, but I trust him. He won't be selfish about it, and besides, Shiemi probably can't drink on her own. She needs him to help, which he's in no condition to do right now."

As Bon was speaking, Rin began to carefully drink from the spicket, not wanting to touch his lips to it. He felt the urge to gulp the water, to practically drown himself in it, and _damn_ did he _want_ to drink until he could no longer stomach it. But he knew he wasn't the only one that needed it right now. Bon was right about that much – he wouldn't be selfish about it, for now.

 _'I can come back for more later.'_ He told himself before reluctantly pulling away from the water. He took a breath he hadn't known he was holding, bracing himself. Normally, the idea of having to put his mouth anywhere near Shiemi's would have him turning red as a beet. But now, still thirsty, still cotton-mouthed despite the mouthfulls of water he'd just drank, he was dreading the impulse control he would have to exercise to keep from swallowing the life-giving fluid that Shiemi needed.

Taking in another breath, his classmates and teachers looked on as he took another mouthful of water, transferring it to Shiemi the only way practical right now – by mouth. Half the room jumped when she let out a pitiful but short-lived wail of pain, Rin gently encouraging her to swallow with his fingers massaging her throat.

"I know it hurts." There was a quiver in his voice. "But you have to drink."

Again and again he transferred the water to her lips, each time eliciting a whine or groan of discomfort or pain. After not having water for so long and being so dehydrated, her throat ached with the raw intensity of a burst blister. The air in this room was stagnant, but dry, causing her mucous membranes to begin drying up in her throat. The pain was almost intolerable.

But she wanted water. She wanted it _so bad_.

"M...more..." She croaked after a few rounds.

"Do you think you can drink on your own?" Rin asked, helping her when she tried to sit up. She looked behind her bleary-eyed, but beginning to feel better, looking at the water spicket. She nodded, looking back at Rin. "I don't think...I can hold myself though." She forced herself to speak, glad she hadn't gone mute.

"I'll hold you. You can drink."

"Oi, I don't mean to be the bad-guy here, but the rest of us need water too you know." Izumo said with crossed arms. "I understand she needs it more than us right now, but if you want that water to last, you are going to have to ration it at least a little."

"Nah. Bad idea." Bon countered. "Everyone needs to get hydrated first. Then we ration whatever is left. There's at least ten gallons there. That's plenty for everyone to drink their fill and still have some left over, unless you think you can guzzle a whole gallon in one go." Izumo didn't have a rebuttal for that, and so kept quiet. She figured, being a boy and the book-worm he was, that Ryuji probably knew more about survival than she did anyway.

Shiemi drank the water until she could drink no more, her stomach cramping from the sudden fullness after a few days of being empty. Rin pulled her gently away, letting everyone else have their turn at the water. Much to his surprise, everyone waited their turns patiently for a drink. The thought made him a little happier – until he seen Yukio limping over to the jug.

"You got hurt?" Rin said aloud, wondering how he hadn't noticed. Yukio ignored him until he had knelt and downed several mouthfuls of water, which Rin understood.

"It's not that severe." Yukio replied quietly. "It will be fine in a few days."

"Best you not draw attention to things like that." Shura, who unexpectedly slung an arm over Rin's shoulder, whispered conversationally. "Not that it matters much anyway, but I don't think it's wise to give the rest of them any more reason to worry, y'know?" She clarified, sparing a very fleeting glance at Mephisto, who wasn't paying them any mind, more focused on whatever Amaimon was doing. Shura daren't look to see herself, already knowing.

But it would seem she was destined not to be the only one – in such a small space, there wasn't anywhere for sounds to really hide. The sound of a shirt ripping drew the unfortunate attentions of several of the exwires – including Rin, who all but retched at the sight.

Amaimon had sufficiently rendered the neck of the corpse clear of any flesh, and was moving on to his shoulders, for which he had to tear the shirt. The sight of the exposed muscle, the weirdly pearly tissue, the off-white of what remained of the trachea – none of that bothered Rin particularly. He had cut apart enough chickens and meat in his life that the sight of the flesh and even the bone didn't especially phase him – provided, of course, he didn't think about it. But what _did_ bother him, what _did_ make him want to choke up all the water he had just swallowed, was the fact that the boy's face – now deprived of a name or any kind of known attributes, purely for the sake of staying sane – the _boy_ still had a face, still had a _human_ face.

It didn't feel real anymore. None of this felt real – but maybe that was for the better, Rin thought. Maybe it was better if he didn't accept it, if he pretended it was all just special effects and fake blood. Pretend that that face didn't belong to someone he knew, pretend that he wasn't watching, cloudy-eyed and half-aware, as his rival, his enemy, his goddamn _brother_ was eating that boy's body, tearing off strips of pinkish flesh with the aloof attitude you would expect of a predator enjoying it's meal. Pretend the sight didn't make him want to be sick –

And above all, pretend it didn't make him _hungry_.

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Mephisto watched his human subjects discreetly, paying them no direct attention for fear of rousing their suspicion. He was beginning to dread this whole affair – no matter how this ended, he would not walk away with all of his pieces on the board. If they didn't perish, they would surely jump ship. While it was true that there were always other pieces, he really didn't relish the idea of having to start from scrap all over again, not when fashioning all the pieces he already possessed had taken up more of his personal time than he cared admit.

More pressingly, however, was the Vatican. He needed those bigots to keep him in the upper keep, or else his plans would falter, and he simply didn't have the patience for that. Lord of Time he might be, but even he was in a race against it. Well, a race of a demon's pace – which was, in this particular context, not very fast. Lucifer was in the lead right now, however, and that was something that Samael just couldn't stand for right now.

Ah, but concerning himself with such a distant future was inconsequential if the nearer one put him into bigger trouble. Oh, this was all so vexing! On one hand, he needed to maintain _some_ kind of appearance for his human subjects, or else they would revolt against him – one human was nothing to a demon, understand, but a few armies of them could give even _him_ a run for his assets. In here, and weaponless to boot, these exorcists were not of much more threat to him than a colony of cats. That was a significant improvement than the insects they had been before, but still. No, it was that pesky foresight he was known for that made them seem so much more threatening to him now.

However, while he did need to maintain some kind of appearance, he couldn't, in these circumstances, be expected to maintain his gentle-man like dignity. No, no, it wouldn't be possible, not after what he had already done. That illusion was already gone. Which left him the utterly frustrating task of coming up with some alternate, in-between facade to appease both the humans and himself, and now that Amaimon was here, him as well.

That didn't even cover Lucifer. But he had all night to ponder on that one, and planned on making use of the silence to do so later.

"You know, I hate to be the one to state this, but Amaimon did have a point." Mephisto sighed. "The only edible thing in here is that boy's body. Despite how it may repulse you, if you don't eat now, you might not ever." As if to emphasise his point, a loud, wet crack echoed in the room. Wandering eyes found Amaimon ripping a clavicle from it's fleshy prison before biting down on it with another cracking sound, crunching on the bone like candy.

"...He has a point." Yukio muttered quietly, drawing all eyes to him, but none more so than Rin.

"Are you mad?" Rin asked legitimately.

"No." Yukio replied calmly, pushing up his glasses. "I am being logical. Something you are not very good at." Rin flinched from the jab. "I dislike the idea of cannibalism just as much as the next person, but that body is going to rot if it doesn't go somewhere. May as well make use of it while it's still edible."

"Yeah, but food means waste." Bon interjected a response Shima was about to make, stopping him.

"True – but we are much safer with that filth than a rotten corpse. At least that has been taken through at least one immune system. Besides which – " Yukio's face, which had been a frown, now became a scowl. "By the time any of us are really hungry enough to consider cannibalism, that body will have looked like a dream come true. He wasn't close with any of us, and being dead already, none of us have to have the weight of killing him on our conscience."

"No, we just have to deal with the weight of eating him!" Rin shouted back, voice echoing painfully off the walls.

"If you want to starve, be my guest." Once more, Yukio was strangely calm. "But you'll regret it when your hunger drives you to kill someone really close to you. It could be me. It could be Shiemi. It could be any of us. Whoever is weakest at the time."

"You stop talking like that, right now." Rin growled.

"You can do what you like, little brother." Yukio said flatly, almost coldly. "But I have no intentions of killing anyone who is worth something to me. I also don't want to starve."

"Yukio..." Shura said, half-warning, half-question.

"Well, while this is all quite the interesting conversation," Mephisto interrupted, calling attention. "I'm afraid you don't have a lot of time to deliberate if you want there to be anything left." He nodded over to Amaimon, who had gluttonously eaten a large part of the boy's upper back now, exposing the spine and shoulder blades, still red, still _warm_ , in a grotesque fashion.

"If you want any part of that, then I will have to take it away from him, for if you tried, he would kill you, and then probably eat you as well." Mephisto explained, disturbingly casual about it. "As such, I demand 20% of anything left for myself."

"Twenty percent?" Bon looked shocked. "But there's hardly anything there to begin with!"

"Ryuji?" Konekomaru looked up at his friend, shocked and disturbed that he would even consider the idea.

"I need food too." Mephisto said simply. "Besides which, there are...reasons, why I have to eat at least part of it."

"Like what?" Bon countered.

"Ah ah, tick-tock." Mephisto pretended to tap a watch on his wrist. "Amaimon is eating at a slow pace right now, but as he realizes there is pressure on him, he will doubtlessly eat faster." As if on cue, Amaimon scarfed down a sizable chunk of flesh, swallowing without really chewing.

"Grrr..." Bon and Yukio both deliberated for a second before Yukio responded.

"Fine. Take what you have to." He said forwardly. "But no more." Mephisto grinned like a cheshire cat, rising to his knees.

"You have a deal, little exorcist." Mephisto grinned wider as he crouched, crawling with surprising grace over to his sibling, who growled on reflex upon his arrival.

"Now Amaimon, you have had your fill." Mephisto chastised. Still, Amaimon did not budge, though he did stop eating. Mephisto's grin suddenly faltered.

"Amaimon." The tone was warning. In response, a strange thing happened – Amaimon, rather than heeding his older sibling, instead chose to let his hackles slowly rise. Another growl slipped his throat, and in less than half a second, what began as a simple glance in the direction of the other's eyes became a staring contest.

 _'he can sense I am weakened. This is not good.'_ Mephisto thought briefly. The atmosphere became immediately tense, enough so that the humans noticed it too, and began to migrate slowly towards the wall opposite to where the two demons were at.

"Get behind me." He heard Rin whisper as they shuffled about. _'Good boy.'_

The tension mounted, and Mephisto let out a low, threatening growl. His posture was straighter than Amaimon's, an attempt at displaying dominance, but one which his little brother just wasn't going to be intimidated by. Not today.

Mephisto always wondered when it would come to this. Amaimon and he had come to blows before over petty dominance disputes – but with no demon power to rely upon, the elder really had to wonder what the outcome of this would be if Amaimon didn't back down. The younger demon was easily twice his physical strength, even if he lacked the same agility or speed. Mephisto wasn't really made for physical combat, and Amaimon knew it – but he also wasn't stupid enough to think his older brother was defenseless. No, Mephisto might not of had muscle, but he made up for it with built-in weaponry.

Rin et al watched the two demons engage each other in a sort of challenge, Amaimon's tail flicking irritably by his side as his hackles visibly raised. A single, wide swish of his tail elicited from Mephisto a nearly cat-like growl, the hair on the back of his head quite visibly standing, or attempting to stand, on end. A silence followed, broken by a single, much quieter growl. Several agonizingly tense seconds followed. Rin, who was particularly aware of the subtle language of their movements, moved to cover his classmates as fully with his body as he was able, suddenly squishing them against the wall.

No sooner had he done so than the tension broke – exploded, really – into demon-on-demon violence. It was hard to tell who made the first move, but Rin guessed it was Mephisto, since his hand was the first that he'd seen connect with Amaimon's face. He didn't punch him, though, but instead raked claws that Rin wasn't even aware he had down his sibling's face. This made Amaimon rear back with a snarl, throwing his own claws forward, landing them on Mephisto's chest and shoulders. The weight and momentum nearly sent said demon tumbling backward, but he caught himself narrowly on his heels, using the adrenaline in his system to fuel his strength as he all but threw Amaimon against the wall to his left.

Expecting it to be Amaimon who retaliated, Rin was dumbfounded and more than a little horrified when Mephisto came back on top of him in an instant, not giving his younger sibling a single moment of recovery before his claws were sunk quite deeply into the flesh of Amaimon's neck, pinning him down. The earth demon let out a terrible, raspy hiss, kicking his elder in the ribs hard enough to jerk him back – but not hard enough to make him let go, apparently. There was a flurry of blind movement as Amaimon tried to free himself, letting out a deafening and utterly hellish, guttural scream as he did so. But Mephisto had the upper hand, grappling his brother with sharp, hooked talons until his back was flat on the ground, a feat which took more effort than he'd of liked. He crushed Amaimon's throat with one forearm, claws sunk into his shoulder – and as soon as the opportunity presented itself, bit down _hard_ onto his brother's exposed cheek.

Amaimon made a terrible fuss of this, thrashing with renewed vigor, the series of growls and snarls exchanged between them becoming louder and more intense. Amaimon grappled with Mephisto's wide shoulders, trying to push him off, to no avail. Rin looked on with both fascination and horror at the scene, settling more for the latter when Amaimon, out of nowhere, let out a high, keening wail, like that of a dog being kicked, or a hyena chased.

Rin watched as blood poured from the demon's face, Mephisto's jaws locked tightly onto his sibling's cheekbone. He pinned the younger demon beneath him with the crushing bite, using his weight to sink his teeth in deeper. Amaimon thrashed once more, enticing a slithering sort of motion to creep up Mephisto's body beginning at the hip, and ending when he shook Amaimon violently to the side like a dog, but only once, eliciting a sharp yelp in the process. He continued to pin the younger down with his fangs, his shake having apparently stunned the younger into motionlessness. A long, intense silence followed as they merely held their positions, Mephisto splattering blood across his sibling's throat when he huffed through the blood pouring into his mouth.

A long, pitiful and downright _pained_ whine slipped from Amaimon's clasped throat, and before Rin could muster the will to say anything, the older demon let him go. Amaimon remained still a moment, his tail tucked close to his thigh. In another instant, the demon scrambled to his feet and tried to bolt away from his older brother, but, forgetting for a moment he was trapped in a steel box, managed to ram himself deafeningly into the hard steel with enough force to dent it.

The humans, unharmed, were largely at a loss for words or comprehension of what happened. Rin got the gyst of it intuitively, but couldn't put it into words if he tried. Yukio could – but wasn't sure if he should explain or not. He wasn't sure it was necessary.

Mephisto sat still a few moments, seemingly panting – but Yukio knew better. He was huffing with his mouth open, the red-tinged points of his ivory fangs still clearly and _purposefully_ visible. He wasn't huffing from tiredness, despite the struggle he'd just had – no, he was huffing from agitation, much like a bear would. And like if he were confronted by an agitated bear, Yukio felt some deep instinct tell him not to move from his spot, lest it take out more of it's ire on _him_.

The older demon gave a quick, doggish shake of his head, shaking the blood off of him. Blots of red stained his white uniform, some of it from Amaimon, some from himself where the younger had nailed his shoulders. He once more used a crouched position to move about, despite there being room to stand, not really trusting his body to hold him up right now. Amaimon had landed one hell of a blow on his ribcage, and he'd be damned if he was going to let anyone else know he'd actually broken two of his ribs – partly out of instinct, partly out of reason.

Amaimon sat in the corner, licking the flat part of the back of this thumb before rubbing it carefully over his face like a cat. Rin took a look at him, and felt his lip curl in revulsion and, if he was being honest, a little bit of pity for his half-sibling. He also felt a new-found fear of his other, older half-sibling, for the wounds on Amaimon's face were quite severe. Rather than simple puncture wounds, there were instead four long, ragged slash-like wounds, one of which clearly exposed the bone in flashes of striking white as the demon opened and closed his mouth to clean the wound ,the still-living flesh moving over and then retreating from the white skeleton beneath. It was utterly disgusting, but more than that, it was terrifying. It looked like someone had gouged him with scissors and tried to cut him up, and there weren't even knives or blades involved – just teeth. Nothing but teeth.

He was bleeding from the claws that had been raked over his skull earlier, but the wounds were closing up and not nearly as gory. Amaimon didn't appear particularly phased by the outcome of their battle, but then, he also had the instinct to conceal his pain and any other weakness – an instinct Rin himself was becoming more aware of these days, now more than ever.

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 **WHOO that was one hell of a long chapter. Sorry if it seems choppy at moments – this was a pain to write. But I am glad it is over now. :)**

 **Because someone mentioned pairings in a review, the only ones presently set up to happen are Amaimon x Mephisto, which will be fairly angsty for the humans involved. (hehehehe, I am evil. So is Mephisto.) and, of course, Rin x Shiemi, though that one is more platonic than anything. I thought about a breif-ish Shura x Yukio, but I am not really sure yet. Yukio is open to be paired with just about anyone right now except Rin (in this situation, I don't think I could squeeze it out. Sorry!). Mephisto x Lucifer will be mentioned later on, but not for a while.**

 **Also, YES, Lucifer did, in fact, have sexy times with Amaimon prior to dumping him in there, which is what P.O. -ed Mephisto. The reasons precisely are yet to be discussed, but you'll find out if you keep reading! :)**

 **In the end this wasn't as gory as I intended , but I hope you enjoyed anyway!**

 **Until next time!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello again lovely readers.**

 **FIRST, I made edits to last chapter. Nothing significant, but basically forgot to add in the part about what Mephisto conjured, which was his cell phone. But it's there now if you feel so inclined to read over the whole 3 sentences, lol.**

 **So, this chapter takes a bit of a different perspective, dealing with Lucifer and Samael's backstory, and _this A/N is about an essay long_ because it deals with my take on a plot hole in the B.E universe, and thus _requires_ an explanation: If Satan is Satan, then who is God? Is there even an analogy to "God" in this universe? **

**To answer this, I went with the closest character that B.E has to the Christian/Judaic God and went from there: Shemihara, the Emperor/God of Creation (I think that was ch. 95 in which he was mentioned by Lightning). I am up in the air about the information presented about him in ch 98 right now, so will be leaving that off for the time being.**

 ***Sigh* I promise I am almost done!**

 **Regarding this chapter specifically, there is mentions of the Biblical story of Lucifer's fall – in this case, modified to partly tie into Shemihara and partly tie into Satan, because of the burning of Lucifer's wings in the original story. It's hard to explain it through the eyes of the character himself, because of his disposition, and so I will say in advance that for the purposes of this story, that Satan and Shemihara both wound up punishing Lucifer on different grounds, but at around the same time.**

 **There is a, as I am sure has been noticed, _dark_ undertone to Amaimon and Mephisto's relationship, and nowhere does that show through more than in the next two chapters, so I dole you an early warning on that one. **

**A/N is officially DONE!**

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 **CH V: _The Paradox of Creation_**

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" _When hazard players finishing their game_

 _Go each his way, the sorry loser stays_

 _Repeating every throw and sadly learns,_

 _While with the winner all the rest go off;_

 _One walks in front, one tugs him [the loser] from behind;_

 _From either side, palms thrust importunate._

 _He pauses not, but heeds one each in turn,_

 _And as his hand goes out, they fall away,_

 _And thus he guards himself against the throng."_

 _~ Divine Comedy,_ "Purgatory" _,_ Canto VI _,_ Dante.

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"Lucifer-sama, it is time for your evening bath." commander Todou alerted. The demon King didn't bother to turn to face her, enthralled with the events playing out on the tele screen in front of him. He watched his siblings from the camera installed in the tiny cell-room, pleased to have some form of entertainment to keep his busy mind preoccupied. He had the volume turned down low, though he could still hear it just fine, not that there was anything to hear now anyway. He watched with interest as his siblings met one another with a challenge, expecting it to blow off as loose steam the way things usually did between Samael and their younger siblings. He was not, however, expecting for Amaimon to stand his ground against the King of Time. Though Amaimon was largely considered a punk, with a temper appropriately considered to be volcanic, he was not the type to fool himself with false ideals or aspirations of grandeur. He was realistic, and Lucifer admired that about his little brother. He knew where and how he stacked against his siblings and usually didn't bother to cross the line in the sand. He didn't aspire to be any larger than he thought he was unless it became a requirement. He was competitive, true, and a sore loser. But it was all in good fun to him – always in good fun. It made it easy to cut him slack for being cocky, being as childish as he was – not unlike the Okumura brothers, in fact.

But one thing Lucifer didn't quite understand was why Amaimon kept to Samael as often as he did. Between the opposing factions the two of them represented, he and Samael, Amaimon was neutral, taking neither side. But it struck Lucifer as strange that his little brother adored Samael so – not because he himself disliked him, no...No, his personal feelings didn't have any bearing on it. Amaimon was the King of Earth, so it made sense that he would want to defend Assiah, since he was an inadvertent product of it's creation.

But Samael was one of the Masters to whom Death itself answered – the King of Time wasn't himself deathless, in spite of that, but it made killing him quite hard, since he existed and failed to exist at the same time. Omnipresent was the adjective, if he remembered right. Everywhere and nowhere, in all times in almost all places, but in none of them at once. He could teleport almost anywhere into almost any time, and if necessary, could revive himself by using the host body of his future self in some alternate reality from which his absence was not particularly consequential. He had no control over the events that happened within time or space, per-say, but he could observe them from afar if he was paying attention.

This ability of his made him difficult to deceive or trick – there was always a running risk that he already knew what you were going to do, had already seen and been to and prepared himself for that future reality. But there was a flaw in his power, one which landed him most likely here, in Lucifer's clutches: he could see the future, to some extent, but could not predict _which_ future would come about with absolute accuracy. He was also predisposed to picking the most likely reality based on his own sense of ego, which meant that any reality in which he lost something or failed was one he either worked relentlessly to alter, so that he would succeed, or paid no heed of whatsoever if he felt it was a logical improbability.

Lucifer could see this as being a probable reason for Amaimon to linger by his side – Samael offered Amaimon a golden window into the future or the past, if he was willing to pay the price to be had for the information. However, it struck Lucifer odd still, that someone who served the Emperor of Creation would also serve the Master of Death. Of course, Lucifer himself also once served that Emperor. He was a son of Satan, as many of them were, but his ability to conjure and control light made him a prime servant for that higher god.

And serve Shemihara he did. He did not often choose to dwell on the thought, but could admit to finding some small comfort in the nostalgia. Back then, he really _felt_ like a god. He could shine his light upon the earth, upon all that lived on or in it, and they all _loved_ him. He was the brightest star, the highest in the rank –

Except that he wasn't.

He remembered now with some amount of melancholy how the God of Creation cast him away, throwing him down, down, down to the ground without so much as a second glance. All he'd wanted was for things to be made right – for him to be able to shine like he should, at the top of the celestial altar, overseeing everything. He wanted to oversee everything, to be involved and to receive that inspiring praise, that loving adulation.

But his aspirations were met with a rigid hand across his face, a slap from the cruel reality of things. He could not shine like he wanted to, could not climb that ladder without disrupting the peace. He could not be as he felt he was meant to be, and grew resentful of his master. One day, that resentment broke through, and on that day, that fateful day, a younger version of himself fell a long ways down the ladder, breaking every rung on the way down so that he could never, _ever_ rise up to that power again.

Lucifer felt his fists clenched, and released them forcefully. His father hadn't been terribly upset when he came back home, battered and bruised, and in fact mocked him for it. Lucifer sighed at the memory. He really had been a fool back then, hadn't he?

Samael had warned him, he reminisced with a bitterness on his tongue and a sweetness in his chest. The devil's right-hand had told him it was a bad idea to try climbing that ladder again, but he was too young to listen, his pride too wounded. At the time, it had seemed to Lucifer as thought Samael had been telling him to do nothing about his battered ego, something which sparked a sense of distaste from him, for wasn't that awfully hypocritical of him? Ah, but hindsight is full-sighted, as they say. Lucifer allowed a bittersweet smirk to grace his pale face. He'd been right, of course. Of _course_ Samael had been right. Lucifer's expression fell as he thought about it. Of course he was right.

He never should have dared to cross Father. He was told so. But damnit, he wanted it! He wanted to be given attention, to be loved by the humans as the other gods were. He was alone back then, alone and abandoned. The humans hated him now because of his foolishness. He was the inspiration for evil, a concept he was never fond of nor bothered to associate himself with. He was hated then, too, or else loved for all the wrong reasons.

After Father punished him for trying to rise against him, he truly _was_ alone. Not a soul, demon or otherwise, would dare to visit him. They were all afraid of Father, that they would be branded traitors if they made contact with him. His brother Astaroth, once his best sparring companion, turned to him blind. Ariel, his own son, abandoned him the moment Shemihara did, staying at the side of that being over him, his own father. He had spoken to him after his fall, but stopped communicating with him the moment he lost his wings – oh, his wings! He sighed, the sound too loud in the quiet of the room, his golden chamber – the nearest to heaven he would ever be again.

There had been one person, though, he recalled with some amount of greif, who was there. Samael was the one charged with his care after Father's punishment. Despite the pain and the suffering, Lucifer really couldn't bring himself to hate his father. He'd done what he had to do to get the point across to his younger, rebellious self, and to make a point to Shemihara that his boy would never go seeking to obtain his throne again.

Lucifer sighed once more as he focused again on the television. Samael, having put Amaimon in his rightful place, now feasted on the spoils, on the boy who's soul he'd already swallowed and who's flesh would now sustain him as well. Lucifer scoffed lightly, smirking. And he called _Amaimon_ a glutton.

His smirk became a frown when he recalled the memories they shared. Samael had become a temporary servant to him after his punishment, Father's only condolence or apology for what he did. Having his younger brother serve him was interesting, to say the least – Samael was a firecracker far worse than he was, and was equally just as rebellious. Perhaps that is why Father had assigned him, Lucifer thought. The boy had needed a lesson, but had done nothing worth punishing him for just yet at the time.

Having only Samael as his company in otherwise grueling solitude, he formed a unique kind of attachment to the then-child that was Samael. Even after his punishment and isolation had ceased, Samael and he continued to be a part of one-anothers existences. Oh, they had argued, each just as stubborn as the other, both of them competitive and fiercely proud. But even when they disagreed, they always found a way to make it up to one another, through gifts, through entertainment, through touching or even sex; they were two sides of one coin. Mephisto was the darkness, the melancholy moods that would grip them both, the solace in the silence and the slow, steady beating of their hearts whenever they bothered to lie with one another. He was the shadow, the ticking of the clock as it passed by, yet never really went anywhere. He was there, constant and steady.

Lucifer, conversely, was there, but not always so obvious, preferring to take the back-roads or to keep to himself, perpetually sulking in the misery of what he used to be, but just didn't have the drive to want anymore. He was still the King of Light, however – he drew people to him, like always, but never got the same feeling of adoration as he used to. He was always there, in one way or another, but it just wasn't the same without Samael. "You can't have light without it's shadow," Father used to say, somehow pleased to see his children getting along as well as they (sort of) did. And indeed, Samael was like a little shadow to him for several long centuries, going with him as Amaimon now did with Samael – like a puppy searching for a master to bathe it with attention and affection.

But all good things must come to an end. Lucifer, being ever as ambitious as he was, couldn't sit by idly and watch the rift between the humans who once loved him and his fellow demons grow wider and wider. Shemihara had begun to take matters into his own hands – already at odds with Satan, he threw fuel into the fire when he began to mitigate the demons of Gehenna, no longer welcoming their company or their praise. Father, knowing that Lucifer was still bitter about being cast aside, turned to him for an opinion.

But as usual, he wasn't the only one to have one. Samael did not agree when Lucifer proposed an act to put Shemihara back into his place, nor did he agree that humans and demons should live in harmony, being a demon who had long preferred chaos over order. Father left it to the two of them, his primary advisers, to determine what was best.

It was ultimately their undoing.

Samael, taking matters into his own hands, went into the human world in the guise of a prophet, and preached to the humans the dangers of his own kind*. He drove the wedge farther and farther, for years doing nothing but stirring up the mud at the bottom of a perfectly clear lake, clouding the eyes of not just the humans, but demons too. He gathered followers, claiming to be the savior of humanity, when really all he hoped to save was his own ego.

And so progressed a feud between them that had yet to resolve. Lucifer was made once to go to war for his ideals, and it did not dissuade him now, though he would gladly have made them happen any other way.

Lucifer watched Samael on the screen, finishing his short-lived meal. He ate, likely not from hunger, but for display purposes. The more dominant the demon, the faster they got their turn when sharing a meal. Samael technically ate first when taking the child's soul, but ate again just to prove his point after putting Amaimon in his place. There was, however, another reason he ate – a telling one that Lucifer, who had spent a chunk of his sibling's life by his side, knew how to spot. Samael truly was a bit of a glutton, but he ate the most whenever he was in a state of internal unrest. His feasting was a tell for Lucifer – a tell that said Samael was scared.

He watched the screen with the slightest tinge of pity. Locking a demon in a box until they went crazy was not often considered to be acceptable even by demon standards. Doing it to someone he once knew well, who he was once legitimately bonded to...he had to admit, it was not the easiest thing he had done. He did not regret his decision, for he was fundamentally incapable of the feeling in the human sense of the word – but he didn't feel particularly happy about it either. Some part of him knew there would be literal hell to pay for this, from Samael, from Father, and from the Vatican. But if it gave him the time to conquer his goals, or to pass them onto someone who could, then it was worth it.

He had already resigned himself to his fate if Samael escaped, as he knew his little brother eventually would. He knew he would come, that he would kill him. And he would not fight. If Samael came for him, he might not be _able_ to. He was partially immune to Samael's power – but only partially. When time stopped, he would not – but all that did was ensure no collateral damage was done. After all, Samael was the Master of Death, and death comes to all in one way or another – even Life itself.

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 **Ok, so that was interesting to write.**

 **Yes, Lucifer is technically stronger than Samael, but I feel like when he is trapped in a human body, which can barely contain him, that Lucifer and Samael might be met by one another on more level ground.**

 **Also, in case you missed it, because I am aware not everyone is as hip on quantum physics as I am:**

 **Light Time. As concepts, light can exist even where time can not – however, time can not exist where light does not, because time is fundamentally measured with light. (day/night). Similarly, Life can exist where death does not (kind of – by way of immortality, be that spiritual or physical) but death can not exist where life does not. This is the Paradox of Creation. You can theoretically have life without (natural) death, but you can't have death without life.**

 **Similarly, you can have light where time does not exist, in theory, but you can't have time where light does not exist. (At least by human standards). Ergo, the conflation here between Life/Light and Time/Death.**

 **And before it is said, you CAN have light without darkness, and darkness without light. The middle of a star has no darkness in it; Vanta Black painted in a room removes 99.9% of visible light no matter how bright it is. You can shine the brightest LED into a Vanta Black room and see _absolutely nothing_. (but anywhere the light touched would get very hot very fast). If it didn't conduct heat like a MoFo, with direct exposure to sunlight making the stuff basically vaporize itself, you could probably put the sun inside a Vanta Black space and see nothing but a very dim, greenish glow. (it would still be hundreds of millions of degrees, however.) That stuff is SCARY!**

 **Aufwiedersehen! Reviews are welcome!**


	6. Chapter 6

**There's some things in this chapter worth warning about, and for that I cut straight to the chase:**

 **WARNING: Cannibalism, angst, foreshadowing, etc. Mephisto being the major asshole he is and more.**

 **You have been warned.**

 **I try not to do this anymore, because it adds a ton of unnecessary length, but I really can't help but put the lyrics to this song in this chapter because the whole thing just fits my interpretation of Mephisto in this story to a T. You're welcome to overlook it if you must; credits are at the top this time.**

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 **CH V: _Hate me until you can't._ **

**''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''**

 ** _Half God, Half Devil_ ~ In This Moment**

 **'''**

 _You look at me like I'm a revelation,_

 _You wanna know if I can bring salvation –_

 _You saw a sinner,_

 _saw a saint inside of me –_

 _You wanna know if I'm a friend or an enemy._

 _'''_

 _I waged war in a fiery blaze;_

 _I found peace in a purple haze;_

 _My angels and my demons,_

 _they don't know their place –_

 _Ready or not,_

 _they're gonna come out and play..._

 _'''_

 _I can be your Heavenly,_

 _or I can be your Hell;_

 _I can say a prayer for you,_

 _or I can cast a spell;_

 _I'll push you to the darkness_

 _just to pull you to the light,_

 _Cause I can take away your breath_

 _Or I can bring you back to life –_

 _''_

 _Half God,_

 _Half Devil (x4)_

 _''_

 _I won't pretend that I resist temptation –_

 _I think it's funny when you preach damnation;_

 _I've been to Hell and back,_

 _and now it's just a part of me –_

 _Without the darkness, there would be no light in me._

 _''_

 _I waged war in a fiery blaze;_

 _I found peace in a purple haze;_

 _My angels and my demons,_

 _they don't know their place –_

 _Ready or not,_

 _they're gonna come out and play..._

 _'''_

 _I can be your Heavenly,_

 _or I can be your Hell;_

 _I can say a prayer for you,_

 _or I can cast a spell;_

 _I'll push you to the darkness_

 _just to pull you to the light,_

 _Cause I can take away your breath_

 _Or I can bring you back to life –_

 _''_

 _Half God,_

 _Half Devil (x6)_

 _(repeat the above 2 verses)_

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Yukio was not a very strong person. Really, he was not.

Particularly not now, with a sizeable piece of slimy, pinkish meat in front of him. Saying something and actually doing it took two very different levels of courage – courage that the teacher wasn't sure he had in him at the time. His mind was a venerable mess – was this really okay? Could he really live with having done this? He supposed he'd done some rather unsavoury things to himself and his classmates before – but this? This...was not the same. It didn't sit at the same level of depravity. He could admit to himself that it took a considerable amount of lacking in caring or judgement to point a gun at not only himself, but his own student, his own sibling too. And he'd be lying to himself if he were to say that he didn't feel guilt about doing all those things.

But _this_? Cannibalism? Even as his stomach lurched with a painful cramp and his vision swam with hypoglycemic vertigo, his instincts revolted. No manner of day-dreaming or trying to disguise the fact could change it – he knew what was in front of him. Worse, he knew exactly who it belonged to. While never close to Nemu, he had still been the boy's instructor. It was kind of funny, actually, how much such a shallow relationship seemed to mean when he was facing the moral challenge of choking down human flesh.

Yukio watched a satiated Mephisto slink around the room like the rat he was, mockery in his every movement. It was the _demon_ who had judiciously ripped the meat into strips and then, with a sadistic smile he tried (and failed) to hide, divided among the exwires. For Yukio, it felt as if the demon were trying to shove it down his throat, rubbing salt into the wound he'd made in himself when he agreed to eating it. Worse was the fact he _knew_ Mephisto was manipulating his emotions, purposefully tormenting him for his own twisted amusement.

Never before did the title "demon" suit the man so much.

"You can be angry all you like," Mephisto said, finally settling against the far wall, directly beside Amaimon, who was still nursing his injuries. In spite of that, the younger didn't seem bothered that his sibling sat beside him. But then, nothing ever seemed to bother Amaimon. "But I'll hold you each to your word. You were, after all," the old demon gazed directly at Yukio now. "quite correct. A few weeks from now, and this boy's sacrifice will have looked like a dream come true."

"Sacrifice? Sacrifice?!" Rin upstarted. "He wasn't even conscious!"

"All the same, he knew he would die. When doesn't especially matter now that the deed is done, now does it?" Mephisto replied calmly, shrugging his shoulders with a sardonic smirk. His expression became more serious as he gazed at Rin with an unreadable look in his eyes. "Now, boy, let me tell you something that might help you out here – as the Master to Death itself, I can assure you that once that fleshy prison is empty, the body vacated of it's host soul, whatever the sort, that there is truly nothing left of a person but the flesh they leave behind. I can't say as I've ever understood the human standard for revering the dead – particularly where funerals are concerned. You put a petrified corpse that has no thoughts, no soul, no life at all up on a pedestal for people to see and speak to, despite that they can not hear – sounds like the average cult ritual if you ask me!" The demon grew more animated as he spoke, breaking into a foxish grin, but now calmed. "My point being, there is nothing left of the boy you knew. Not a damn thing. His body doesn't unto itself hold anything right now except valuable nutrients and sustenance to keep all of you alive for as long as possible."

Rin was quiet for a long minute, processing things with a vacant expression.

"To reiterate again what I've already said," Mephisto continued when he received no reply. "you will regret not taking this opportunity while it is here. You think tormenting yourself over cannibalizing a boy you barely knew is hell? Think about doing it with the people sitting right next to you." Eyes and hands shifted uncertainly as Mephisto's words gained conviction.

"Why?" Rin piped in quietly, head down. "Why are you pushing so hard for us not to die? You said it yourself – you'll eat any corpses. So where's the benefit for you in not letting us starve?" Rin said this all quite deliberately, and without raising his voice. The tone alone was a shock for Mephisto, but the boy's words inspired a toothy smile to split his face. Maybe his little brother wasn't as stupid as he looked.

"Because I don't like to lose." Was all he said, closing his eyes and regaining some of his composure. "Now, will any of the rest of you join them?" Mephisto asked, motioning to a small total of Yukio and Bon, who'd been the only ones he'd deliberately handed the meat to.

A long, dreadful silence ensued. It wasn't as if the demon didn't know what he was asking them – though lacking in human emotions himself, he wasn't any less aware of what they were feeling. Years and years of human-watching had taught him the social and emotional cues they used very well – which was perhaps the only reason he passed off as one so well when he needed to.

By show of a raised hand, Shura joined the group of willing cannibals. Mephisto suspected she would, having been brought up by a demon when young. Shima, in spite of his upbringing with priests, didn't hesitate to pop his hand up, looking rather nonchalant about it, as usual. Mephisto's lips threatened to smile at the sight. Shima was indeed a very strange boy with a very strange and unusual mind for a human. Another reluctant hand went up from Izumo, who held her composure by a thread. She, too, was an odd little human – but then, Mephisto was hardly one to judge the strange.

Mephisto glanced at Shiemi, who did not budge from her position. Mephisto nearly shook his head at the girl. Poor creature was far too compassionate for her own good. Glancing at Amaimon from the corner of his eye, he had to wonder if anything between them would really work. Amaimon could be affectionate, when he wanted to be (which wasn't often) but his temper might end with Shiemi being buried alive or worse if he were to legitimately pursue her.

Konekomaru also did not budge. Mephisto expected that the boy wouldn't last long in here. He wasn't as physically frail as Shiemi, who literally wilted like a flower whenever the conditions didn't suit her body right, but he was in less of a fit mental state than even Yukio – not because he was delusional, but because he just didn't have any mental fortitude or confidence. Mephisto respected the fact the kid knew his own boundaries – he couldn't handle eating another human being. He was far too righteous and far too prone to self-dissection for that to work out.

Oh well. He'd be another body soon, then.

"Hmf. Don't act as if you haven't already taken the best parts for yourself." Shura huffed quietly. "Sure, there's still value in what remains – but that's all they are. Remains. You already ate the liver, which has more iron in it than anything, and the heart – full of vitamins. You've eaten the fatty parts of his tissues, his abdominal muscles and around the ribs. You say you want us to live, yet leave barely enough to feed us all before the body rots, which will be soon. And you also, you greedy bastard, have ensured there's just enough meat leftover that it will rot, making it inedible for us, but perfectly fine for you." Shura challenged. "Don't play like you're doing us any real favors. You're just prolonging the inevitable. We all are."

"So then, you refuse to eat?" Amaimon chirped in, happy about getting more for himself.

"I didn't say that –"

"Ah," Mephisto interrupted with a smile full of teeth. "Feeling picked on because you only got the leftovers?" He mocked openly. His expression and voice became more eerie when he said, "Be grateful you have even _that_ much. I could have let Amaimon finish him off. In fact, I'm positive he will, as might I, before tomorrow evening." The demon's smirk was cruel now, his voice lowering in pitch to a more apprehending tenor. "You really don't have a large window of time. Gluttony is in the nature of any demon. We eat what we can, when we can, as quickly and as often as we can, in order to sustain our larger energies. I can not deny my own hunger, which lingers still – a constant presence, is more like it." he hissed the final consonants, a deepening threat in his stance, which tilted his head forward and down, somehow making him appear larger even though he was sitting down. "I can fast for a long time – a _long_ time – but I can not halt temptation, and neither am I known for resisting very well what I know is supposed to be out of reach." A sharp _click_ had his teeth snapping together, a well-worn warning by itself. "I do not expect the likes of a human such as yourself to understand why I am doing what I am – as I've said before, I'm far more a monster in this situation than you'd ordinarily consider." His stance and tone relaxed a bit. "And I am certain you will hate me for that." He stated flatly. "But do mind your pretty little mouth, miss Kirigakure – lest you find yourself at the bad end of worsening impulse control."

Mephisto turned sharply to Rin, who watched the debacle with ears tilted back as far as they'd go and a nervous tail at his side, though it twitched in irritation also. "As for you, little brother, I once more remind you that you have a choice to make – here and now." Mephisto gestured to the half-eaten corpse, entrails now vividly exposed. In a way, the guts served to calm rather than frighten the humans – perhaps it was easier for them to now distance themselves from the person who used to live in that shell, now that he was literally nothing but a pile of bloody flesh on the floor. Humans were certainly odd little creatures that way. "You must decide, here and now, whether you are going to go to the required lengths to survive, and in doing so retain your humanity in the future; or if you are going to preserve what's left of your humanity now and wind up sacrificing it, as well as your own life, in the future."

"This is ridiculous!" Bon spoke up in Rin's defence for once. "You can't expect him to make that choice so abruptly – he hasn't lived like us, isn't _like_ any of us!"

"Indeed he is not." Mephisto said in a strongly clipped tone, a sharp gaze thrown Bon's way shutting him up. "And that is precisely why he must choose. Eat the human, and accept that that is what he must do, or refuse, and wind up becoming food himself." Mephisto half-smiled, half bared his teeth to the humans – he was quite done having to explain himself over and over. "It only takes one bite – whether that's his bite into human flesh or mine into the spine of his neck, I care not."

"Fucker." Rin murmured, distressed by the choice before him. He knew which one he'd have to make, but damn if it didn't make it any easier. "You really are a sick sonofabitch, you know that?" Rin huffed flatly. Mephisto grinned like a Cheshire cat.

"Believe me, little brother, you haven't the foggiest just how _sick_ I can be." Mephisto said haughtily,clearly taking a measure of pride in that statement.

Rin thought on it in silence for several minutes. Yukio, meanwhile, took the opportunity to swallow his nerves – and in turn, attempt to swallow the cool chunk of meat he'd reluctantly bitten off. Bile shot up his throat at the bitter, raw taste – but once it was down his throat, his body insisted he take another bite, followed by another and another. The more he ate, the less the taste seemed to perturb him – an idea that, as a half-demon himself, was disturbing.

An air of apprehension rippled through the group, who watched Yukio take the first incentive with mixed reactions of surprise and stagnant awe. If the exorcist was being honest with himself, he'd admit he did it for his own sake – to appear like less of a wimp in the eyes of the predatory demon currently looking him over with a wry smile. However, he'd also tell anyone else, with some measure of half-truth, that he did it to encourage the others as well as Rin to take the plunge. Brothers they may be, and get along they may not always, but he didn't want to see Mephisto do to Rin what he'd witnessed with Amaimon – except he knew that this time, his elder sibling wouldn't be able to walk away from the attack.

Herd mentality kicked in at last, and having witnessed a leader of sorts, the remaining exorcists followed, carefully biting into the meat before them. Ironically, Shima was the last to taste his, though he chewed it with considerably more care. Rin, meanwhile, glanced upwards at Mephisto, who had come to stand before him with a strip of rib-meat in hand. He knelt to Rin's level, looking him in the eye with a much softer expression than he'd had.

"You decide your own fate this time, Rin. As the King of Time, I assure you that this," he gestured to the other exorcists reluctantly ingesting their shares. "is the wiser choice." The demon stood, moving gracefully back over to Amaimon's side.

Shiemi, meanwhile, thought and thought hard. There had to be some kind of way for them to survive here besides cannibalism. She couldn't help what the others were being subjcted to – glancing over at Rin, she couldn't bear to keep her eyes there. She knew he wasn't being given a choice – none of them were, really. But there _had_ to be a way. There _had_ to be.

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Evening fell silently. The lights began to dim, and Rin, curled up in a corner by himself, refused to join the group as they gathered together for warmth.

"Rin, you coming?" Bon said. Rin did not budge.

"Rin. Rin. RIN." Bon tried to get his attention. Still, the half demon did not react.

"Leave him be for now, Suguro." Yukio advised, sitting beside him with his eyes closed. "He will come back to us when he is ready to. I, for one, don't blame him for not being able to look at us." There was a note of anguish in his teacher's voice that had Ryuji cringing.

"Yeah. I guess so." He whispered.

"Oi, I hate to be the bearer of bad news," Shima piped up rather loudly in the quiet. "But I really can't hold this in any more." All eyes looked to the pink-haired exorcist, who was clutching his crotch with a pleading expression. "I have to pee." He complained. "But I don't have a clue where." He looked over to the corner Rin was in, desperation on his face.

That's when Shiemi had an epiphany.

"Guys...Guys!" She shouted uncharacteristically, gathering even Rin's attention as he shifted to be able to see the group.

"I think I know of a way to deal with that. With the...er, bathroom issue, and maybe food too...if this room doesn't bother him too much."

"What are you talking about?" Izumo inquired somewhat irritably.

"I'm talking about Nii-chan". A dumbfounded look is what she got from the better half of her audience.

"Look, they –" She motioned to the two demons and Rin "can't use their energy, right? But who says we can't?" Light-bulbs flickered over the hopeful heads of the human crowd – and a scowl formed on the face of the oldest demon. _'So, they're figuring out they aren't insects any more. Things are going to get interesting sooner than I thought.'_

"I think I still have summoning papers – maybe I can conjure Nii-chan. I don't think the wards on this room will give him a lot of power, but maybe if I give him some of mine, he could grow some plants. Plants use waste stuff as food, so –"

"So it would help to eliminate the waste poisoning us, as well as providing fresh air – Shiemi, that's brilliant!" Yukio praised her, rising. She blushed profusely, but assented. " What about you, Kamiki?"

"I don't think the wards would let them in, but I can try to call them – even if it doesn't work, we still have that cell phone, don't we?" she looked to Konekomaru, who drew it from his pocket. He did not seem to be sharing the hopes of the others quite as much.

"Yes, but that wall has to open up first." He pointed over there. "And with as much as everyone is disagreeing, I don't know that it _will_ be opened up. Besides, that's at least fourteen centimetres of steel – I don't know that even a demon could split that open without some leverage."

"Did you forget about me?" Amaimon piped up from the corner, drawing eyes. "I can probably pop that open with ease if I have a crack or dent to start from. All it takes is ramming into it a few times." he pointed to where he himself had made a shallow dent in the wall he'd run into. "However, I can't really do that myself without being able to transform, and I don't trust Rin."

" _You_ don't trust _me_?" Rin, snapped out of his brooding, declared. "You're the one who attacked Mephsito, not me!"

"True. True. I got a little too hot in the head, and I paid the price for it." Amaimon gestured to his healing wounds. "But now that I've been put in my place, I won't dare try it again. I'm not that stupid, unlike someone who doesn't seem to remember that he's my _baby_ brother."

"Enough, both of you." Mephisto said exasperately, coming between them. He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I can appreciate the enthusiasm, and I agree that summoning Nii would be a good idea." He gestured over to Shiemi passively. "However, I would remain cautious of what you do. We are under surveillance, if you recall." A sea of wan faces told Mephisto that, no, they hadn't recalled. "Lucifer isn't going to make it easy to escape, in any case. The only person here who can do so under normal circumstances _is_ me, and he's designed this cage specifically to keep _me_ in it. That means," He translated, "that it might not be as simple as wire-tapping a signal through. Even if True Cross finds us, there is no guarantee that they will survive to make it to where we are in here. Lucifer is too damn crafty to make rescuing us that simple."

"...I hate to say it, but he is right." Shima said, straining still not to piss himself. "Lucifer doesn't like to lose either. He'll accept it better when he is beaten, but he sure as hell won't make it easy." Shima began to turn red, holding his breath. "Ughhhh, can someone please let me pee somewhere? I can't hold it anymore." Rin, with a short sigh, moved out of the way.

"Ugh, thanks man."

"Shiemi, try yours first." Yukio encouraged. "Even if Mephisto is right, we still have to try something. Anything is better than just sitting here and waiting to die. Are you ready, Shiemi?"

"O-okay, I'll try!"

Shiemi pulled a paper from her pocket and made the short incantation – and _poof!_ Into the palm of her hand came her familiar. A wave of excitement transversed the group as the tiny greenman yawned.

"Nii-chan?" Shiemi said gleefully, earning a happy eep from her familiar. However, shortly upon standing, he seemed to lose his balance and fall back over, holding his little head.

"I know, Nii-chan – there's seals and stuff in here that are going to make you feel a little bad, ok? But we could really use your help. Can you give me any pillow moss?" Nii seemed to ponder this a moment before nodding. "We need it, er...over there." She indicated to where Shima had just finished relieving himself. "It will absorb the liquid and give other plants a root-hold."

"Nii!" The greenman hopped off Shiemi's hand, landing awkwardly on the ground. He picked himself up and hopped over to the corner, chirping as he did so. With a bit of strain, he produced a blanket of thick moss from beneath his feet, spreading it out across a sizeable bit of the corner. Rin watched with wide eyes as the moss spread up the wall as well as out, covering an area the size of a stand-in shower.

"Wow, Nii, you sure have a lot of energy!"

"His isn't cut off like ours." Amaimon interjected. He had a strange sort of near-fatherliness on his face as he watched the tiny creature grow the moss. The sight was a relief from the dull, steel walls of their prison cell, and much to the surprise of the Earth King, it seemed to boost the morale and moods of the exorcists as well, considerably so.

"Yes! Now we, sort of, have a bathroom – one that cleans itself." Rin's mood in particular had brightened. "Now we just have to deal with opening the wall."

"We shall have to wait until morning." Yukio said, quickly stalling his brother's good mood. He hated being told to wait, and the younger knew it.

"It's night time – it may not exactly be dark in here, but this is the time when demons like them and Lucifer," he gestured to Amaimon "are most active. Even if Lucifer predicts we will wait until he is most likely to be resting, we still have a better shot of doing this during the day – when the steel isn't so cold and rigid."

"Rigidity makes metal fragile, though – right?" Rin countered. "Shura told me that."

"Yes, I did," she agreed. "but in this case, it's not so cold as to freeze the metal, which means it really won't be easier to open. Not tonight, in any case." Rin's face became crestfallen. "But we can talk about this more tomorrow. Now, if you will excuse me, I also really need to pee."

"Use this to cover yourself, dear." Mephisto, with a sly smirk, threw her his uniform coat. "Even if the morale is better, it doesn't mean we need a show." Shura blushed as she took the coat, averting her eyes.

"Shut up, ya stupid prick."

 **Ok, well I decided to end that on a slightly happier note than the last.**

 **Please, by all means, review giving me constructive advice! Even if it is to harp on me about my sometimes shitty attitude in the A/N. (Apologies for that one). I can't know I am doing anything wrong if no one tells me.**

 **Until next time!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Hello, hello!**

 **First, let me say this chapter did not AT ALL go the way I thought it would, but it just kind of...happened. Feel free to be upset with me, for there is some rather triggerish things in here, but my fingers have already done their work.**

 **Besides, as one reviewer established, my perspective on Samael is a bit different, in part because I am basing him more off the actual demon/angel creature in mythology as opposed to Goethe's Mephistopheles, of which Kouta has confessed her character is based.**

 **I also take this liberty with Amaimon, to some extent, but as Amaimon is rather ambiguous to begin with, it's hard to mess that up.**

 **That said, I will tell you this much BEFORE you begin reading, because I realize most of you aren't as nerdy as I am.**

 **Samael is, mythologically, the father of Asmodeus – yup, _that_ Asmodeus. The demon of Lust and carnal desires – Samael is his dad, and boy, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.**

 **Samael is known as both an angel and a demon – a literal saint and sinner, both a prophet and a tempter. He once went into Jerusalem in the guise of a prophet, as I mentioned loosely in another chapter – but that same night, he went around seducing every woman he could find. Thus, he earned the title of " _the seducer_ ". **

**Samael is also, quite truthfully, a trickster. One who is known for using magic tricks and illusions to confuse people and make them do what he wants.**

 **And, in the words of what is probably the most detailed book I've ever read containing Samael's entire, multi-religious mythos:**

" **Samael is either the purest of angels, or the foulest of demons, and there's little in-between."**

 **OH, and do remember that canon bit of information about demons not being able to mess with you until you drop your guard and/or let them in. :)**

 **WARNING: Some sexual content of...dubious consent. Lots of angst and "WTF" moments. You are warned.**

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 **CH VI: _Hallucinations – Stay Awake!_**

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" _Take this kiss upon the brow!_

 _And, in parting from you now,_

 _Thus much let me avow —_

 _You are not wrong, who deem_

 _That my days have been a dream;_

 _Yet if hope has flown away_

 _In a night, or in a day,_

 _In a vision, or in none,_

 _Is it therefore the less_ _ _ **gone**__ _ **?**_

 _ _All__ _that we see or seem_

 _Is but a dream within a dream."_

 _~ Dream Within A Dream,_ Edgar Allan Poe

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Yukio woke in the night for reasons he could not immediately surmise. He knew something must have woken him, for him to be as alert as he was – but what?

A faint rustling sound from across the room began to answer some of his questions. He could tell by the sound that it was Mephisto moving around – but something still seemed off about it. Opening bleary eyes, he reached for his glasses, tucked into his pocket. At his movement, the demon stopped. Growing suspicious now, Yukio quickly adjusted his glasses – and rather wished he hadn't when he seen precisely what had been making the sound.

He should have known – it's not like that sort of thing was unheard of among demons, after all. It didn't affect them the same way, and so they had little to no instinctive avoidance to it. But that knowledge didn't stop him from awkwardly cringing at the sight of Amaimon situated very... _suggestively_ , in the lap of their headmaster.

He almost wanted to cough to get their attention, but at the same time knew it really wasn't any of his business. Besides, they already knew he was awake – their stillness, at least, implied as much. Not that it lasted long before they picked up again their subtle movements, which really, were quite quiet. It just happened that Yukio was an infamously unsound sleeper who was quite used to halting his brother from sneaking out at night, and as such had trained himself to be responsive to subtle changes in sound like that. He rather cursed it now, of course.

He couldn't quite keep himself from watching for just a moment, however. As if to confirm that they were, indeed, engaged in such a manner. It didn't take long for the answer to become obvious as Amaimon shifted in Mephisto's lap and, facing forward, squeezed his lanky legs around the elder's waist, grinding his pelvis upward as he did so. Mephisto had his lips situated at Amaimon's neck, hovering obscenely over the scars he himself had made. He drew a hot-pink tongue over the area before slowly but sensually scraping his teeth, with all those threatening fangs, over his relative's neck.

Yukio fought a blush, and lost. Mephisto's hand drifted along Amaimon's waist, traveling upwards beneath his coat with one hand, whilst the other began a gentle travel to the opposite direction. Yukio wasn't one to be taken by things easily, but he had to admit that the sheer tenderness of the old demon's touch, feather-light against his sibling's clothes, made something stir in him – a longing, of kinds, for such a touch upon his own skin.

It was a feeling he had battled with many times before. The ache for human touch. He was never one to hand himself over to such desires, no matter how they manifested before him; and in this place, of all places, in this time of them all, he should definitely not be feeling these things!

But oh, he wanted to. It was more than just physical, at that point – some deep, reclusive part of his soul begged him to give in, to let his mind at least fantasize. To long for that touch, any touch. It was a deep and primal need, a facet of his humanity he'd very seldom let into the light. It wasn't as if the act disgusted him, per-se, but rather that he'd never been able to form a long or deep enough connection with another to feel as if he was rightfully deserving of that pleasure, of that _human_ pleasure.

His torment did not go unnoticed. In and amidst his cloudy frame of mind, the exorcist heard murmured musings pass between the demons, whispering oh-so-quietly unto themselves. He was, then, quite startled when he was called out of his misty mind by a whisper passing through to him from the other side of the room, the calling of a literal demon.

"You're welcome to join us." The older demon mused, though his voice held a note of true invitation.

"No thank you." Yukio automatically denied.

"Are you certain, little human?" Mephisto chided. Yukio dare not look him in the eye. "You may not get the opportunity to release yourself like this again."

"And what of the others? What if they wake?"

"Don't concern yourself with that." Mephisto smiled from the corner of the boy's eye, an amused and coy-ish grin. "Should I bid them stay asleep, they shall. My older brother stripped me of my ability to manipulate space, but he did not precisely eliminate my ability to manipulate time."

Yukio thought on this, his mind struggling to lead him anywhere useful. It felt as if there was some censer in the room about him suddenly, at once choking and evoking in him a feeling of calmness. It was a strange thing, truly – a thing he felt as if he should be well and truly frightened of. Yet, he couldn't quite bring himself to be afraid of the sudden change.

"Hmn...It would seem you are not immune to them. Pheromones, that is." Mephisto grinned. "That is actually quite interesting." Somewhere in his foggy mind, he lost track of just where he was relative to the older demon, and now, somehow more awake, realized that he had moved considerably closer. Too close, almost.

"You see now what I can do." the older demon said, reaching a hand towards Yukio, who shut his eyes in anticipation – though of what kind he could not say. "There is a reason, little brother, they call me 'the seducer', and why I am father to Asmodeus." Mephisto whispered, leaning quite close. The strong, heady scent of the demon hit him with the force of a truck, making his head spin almost sickeningly. The smell was sweet, yet it bordered on being repulsively so – like fermented sugar, it was just a little bit _too_ sweet. Beneath it was the lingering smell of Amaimon, who distinctively smelled of earth and pine resin mixed with just a hint of sulphur. It wasn't an unpleasant smell, to be honest, which was rather surprising since Amaimon was a famed scavenger, at least when it came to his meals. For someone who was known to choke down the remains of Naberius, he sure as hell didn't smell like it.

Underneath the lingering scent of the other demon, there was something distinct – the source of that heady smell, a combination of irrefutably _male_ mustiness and a thick, sticky kind of smell, one which reminded Yukio distantly of cinnamon or true vanilla – the kind that stuck in your nose for hours after you smelled it, reminding you constantly of it's powerful scent even when you weren't thinking about it.

The scent of all that was completely intoxicating. But then, that was the idea.

A hand on his waist broke through some of the mist in his head. Mephisto had made physical contact now, a thought which at once thrilled and chilled the exorcist – his instincts told him that this was a dangerous thing he was being tempted into, and he wanted in that moment to put as much space between him and the demon as possible. However, when he leaned back, he was given a sharp shock at the presence of, not a steel wall, but a warm chest.

Yukio froze, a chill running down his spine like a fat drop of cold water. He knew, even without searching for the absent demon, that Amaimon had somehow slipped behind him. To have such a powerful and notoriously violent demon at his back triggered a deep sense of foreboding in his chest – and yet, he didn't quite feel _afraid_. Once again he had the distinctive sense that he should be far more scared than he actually was – and it was _that_ feeling, not the demon at his back, which unsettled him.

He knew, rationally, that he was trapped. One demon knelt before him with a tender, but no less threatening hand on his waist. The other sat behind him, not directly touching him, but preventing his escape nonetheless. _'What am I to do?'_

The thick, cloying scents of the two fused in his mind, dulling his senses. Yukio had only ever been high on accident once in his life, but given his present situation, he could safely presume to be intoxicated. _Pleasantly_ intoxicated, if he were being honest.

And yet, there was something about all of it that just didn't feel right...

Yukio gasped involuntarily when the hand he'd forgotten was on his waist moved. Long fingers grasped his side, a narrow thumb caressing his flank in slow, lazy circles. He jumped out of his skin, or at least figured to do so, when he felt noticably less tender claws touching the middle of his back. His unease gained a rippling texture, coming and going like waves in water as those long, dangerous claws stroked up and down his spine, each time descending lower and lower toward his tailbone. One such stroke passed down to touch said bone, claws lightly grazing over it. A pleasant shudder went up the boy's spine – a tail he might not have, but his tailbone was still just as sensitive as that of any demon. As soon as the clawed fingers disappeared from the area, Yukio immediately wanted them to return, to stimulate those sensitive nerves.

His wish for further stimulation was granted, but not by Amaimon. Mephisto's hand left his waist, traveling down to his hip, where it paused a moment. Confused when the older demon moved his thumb into the hollow of his hip, he felt a sudden urge to writhe in conflicted pleasure when said demon squeezed down, pushing his thumb into that tender hollow. Apparently liking the response he got, Mephisto placed his hand on Yukio's other hip, now squeezing them both simultaneously. A rolling motion traveled up Yukio's body as he tried to move his hips closer, demanding more.

Lips at the back of his neck did not surprise him, but the slow, open-mouthed, but still tender, bite did. Teeth shallowly scraped his skin, squeezing the muscle underneath. The sensation was euphoric, causing the boy to lean his head back, exposing the more sensitive parts of his neck. Mephisto then took the stage, making full use of the invitation as his lips latched on, sucking roughly once or twice over his jugular. It was both nerve-wracking, and perhaps for that reason, extremely arousing.

Amaimon now took over for touching the boy's hips, his long fingers wrapping around far enough to massage both the hollow of his hip and the very edge of his tailbone. In combination with the sucking on the sensitive area of his neck where it met with his jaw, the sensations were enough to stir a soft but sultry moan from the normally silent throat of the exorcist.

Next he knew, Mephisto's fingers snaked their way underneath his clothes, flesh touching bare flesh, leaving trails like hot fire in the demon's wake. A tugging on the exorcist's waistband thrilled him, making his now hardened member throb in anticipation of what was to come.

Yukio had lost all sight of his surroundings by now. The only thing which existed was the hazy images in front of him, a picture of an old and powerful demon slowly, sensually seducing him, Mephisto's head slowly disappearing beneath the boy's chest, nimble fingers undoing his belt and zipper. A sharp thrill of pleasure engulfed him as a mouth, soft and wet, enclosed around his member, sucking in the same rough fashion as before.

Taken by the pleasure he was experiencing, Yukio failed to notice that the light had all but gone, leaving him in a twilight-ish darkness. A rough suck on his hardness came suddenly with a pinching pain of fangs pricking him lightly. Yukio quickly dismissed it as an accident, and resumed enjoying himself.

Amaimon nipped lightly a his nape, fingering his tailbone and the area between his cheeks. It then, out of nowhere, struck the exorcist odd that neither of them seemed to be interested in pleasuring themselves, or even each other at that point. But Yukio's mind couldn't hang onto the thought for long, as Mephisto began to lightly bob his head up and down the boy's length, lips a tight ring around the shaft as his tongue ran in smooth, supple circles over the head.

A sharp, searing pain erupted then from Yukio's shoulder, causing him to suck in a breath and hold it there. No, this wasn't right. Something was wrong. Very wrong. Looking slowly to his side, Yukio felt a body-wide chill consume him as all the blood rushed inward – for on his pale shoulder, there was a lot of blood coming _out._

Confused, he went to look for Mephisto, anticipating an attack – and instead found a corpse, a half-rotted skeleton in his place. Shocked beyond his wit, he felt his senses come crashing back to him in one, swift, disorienting wave – it was enough to make him start to feel sick...

"OI, Yukio!" A shout brought the exorcist quite literally back into the light. Everything was suddenly too bright, too white, too much for his overstimulated mind.

"Yukio! Wake up!" Was that...Rin? "Yukio! YUKIO!" _Slap._ A stinging pain in his face made the exorcist suddenly hyper-aware, startling him upright. When had he lied down?

Looking around him, nothing had changed – well, that's to say, he was back to his senses and could see all the concerned faces of his students around him. Feeling dizzy, he rapidly sucked in a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, trying to gain his bearings.

"Yukio, what the hell happened?" Rin, who was knelt beside him with a seriously concerned expression. "You were thrashing like a fish just now! I seriously thought you were having a convulsion or something!"

"That would be a seizure, dumbass, and so did I." Bon replied from the other side of the exorcist. Big, brown eyes looked to his teacher with cautious concern. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," Shura jumped in, squating beside Rin. She looked the most like she understood something – but what Yukio couldn't exactly say. "You looked like you were being...well, I can't really say it any other way, but like you were being _possessed_." She said it half-lightly, but Yukio knew she was being serious beneath that.

... _Possessed_?

Yukio felt his heart hammering in his chest as the memories of what happened to him came flooding back. The touching, the pleasure, the _terror_ – had all of that been...a dream? An illusion? His eyes quickly scanned behind his friends, first looking for the body. It sat, perfectly still, in exactly the place it had been...wait, was it yesterday? Today? How long had he been out of it?

"Yukio...Yukio! HEY! Quit spacing on me!" Rin shouted in his ear painfully, shaking his shoulders. "You're really starting to freak me out! Talk to me!"

"What..." Yukio began weakly, looking with a dazed expression at Shura, who seemed the more reliable right now, since she was the only one not panicking over his condition. "What time is it? How long was I out for?"

"Well, ya woke up just before the lights came on – I know, cuz I was awake too," Shura explained. "And then you seemed to fall back asleep, so I went back to sleep too – only, just a few minutes after the lights came on and everyone else started waking up, you began freaking the fuck out, thrashing in your sleep and shaking like a leaf. You had everyone worried sick that you'd somehow hurt yourself, or got too dehydrated, or something like that."

Wait...so...none of that was real? He'd only been asleep...a few minutes? Yukio rapidly brought his hand and eyes to his shoulder, looking for the blood which had so startled him before. But nothing – not even his clothes were out of place, not by a single wrinkle. It's as if he'd never been touched at all.

 _'Wait a second...where are the demons?'_

Yukio scanned the wall opposite him, his eyes pausing briefly on Amaimon, who was situated near the still-growing moss, before settling on Mephisto, who sat ever-so-regally in the exact same corner he always sat in, looking perfectly ordinary – not a hair out of place. The only tell the demon gave away was the slightest upturning of his lips, which Yukio could still feel, somehow, against his neck... among other places.

And he _boiled_ with rage.

"You...You slimy, _sick_ , SON OF A _BITCH_!" Yukio was on his feet in an instant, a fierce and frightened rage completely overtaking his rational conscience. He was gonna kill him. Going to beat that slimy sack of repulsive, wicked demon into a bloody pulp – and he was going to enjoy every minute of it. For once, the exorcist understood how Rin felt when he lost his cool, and practically wished he had Satan's fire once more. He'd _incinerate_ the bastard, kill him _dead_ for humiliating him like that!

"Woah, Woah! Yukio, what the hell?!" Rin jumped to his feet, stopping his younger twin by sheer force of brute strength, halting him at the collarbone from charging at the rested demon fists raised. It took a lot more struggling than he expected to stop Yukio from marching over there with a death wish, Rin eventually resorting to directly blocking the rampaging exorcist with his whole body. Yukio punched him hard in the ribs in an effort to get his sibling out of the way, but Rin refused to budge – not until he knew why.

"Get out of the way, Rin! I'll kill that slimy scumbag myself! _Kill him_!" Rin was growing increasingly scared of his brother's irrational behavior, unaccustomed to seeing him in such a blind rage that he blatantly ignored his own warnings. In the heat of the moment, he threw a solid punch in the general direction of Yukio's chest, clipping his collarbone hard enough to send the taller of them stumbling backwards.

"Yukio, stop it!" Rin cried, a single tremble shaking his frame. "You're seriously starting to scare me! Snap out of it!"

"That bastard..." Yukio grumbled, baring his teeth animalistically. Though he largely lacked the demon traits of his older twin, Yukio did have a primitive set of fangs that would erupt when he was truly pissed off – such as now. The twin's narrowed gaze fell straight on the sights of his rage, the oh-so petty demon sitting the corner, looking not the least bit fazed. A half-lidded, smugly expression adorned the old demon's face. It was completely sardonic – an open effort to mock the tormented exorcist.

"YOU..." Yukio growled, pitch dangerously low as his hackles went straight up. "You bewitched me, didn't you?! All of that was fake! An illusion made just to torment me!" Yukio shouted at the demon, voice reverberating off the steel walls. "And for what?! So you can sit there and gloat?!"

"No."

"Then what? Tell me, what was all of that, huh?! Just what sort of sick game are you playing?!" He got no response this time, only a slight smirk. A triumphant smirk. " _Answer me_!"

" _No_." This time, the response was deeper, half-growled. The smirk on Mephisto's face quickly became a half-snarl that bore all his sharp, scissor-ish teeth bare. A feral look had overtaken his countenance, his own hackles beginning to rise to the challenge. "In case you haven't learned anything, Yukio, I don't take well to being given demands." The demon's voice was low, but smooth. "And I warned you, didn't I?" Yukio' s anger faltered a moment in favor of trying to recall that information.

"I told you, Yukio – you _act_ like prey in the presence of a predator, and you are going to _become_ prey." A wide, splitting grin adorned the demon's face, his expression completely losing it's human edge. He was all fangs now. Fangs, and a devilish temper. " Now, whose fault is it that they didn't listen to me?"

"I wasn't expecting you to bewitch me!"

"They never do." Mephisto said casually, a sharp, pitchy chuckle coming from high in his throat – a cackle that seemed more hyena than human. "But that's exactly why I did it, see?" Yukio's train of thought completely faltered in that moment, coming to a screeching halt. So, he did that on purpose...to teach him a lesson? What the fuck was he thinking? _'I am so confused!'_

"So...what?" Yukio tried to wrap his head around this.

"Not all of you are going to survive. I assure you of that." Mephisto, taking a far more human countenance, replied much more calmly. "And I won't protect you from yourselves. I certainly won't be able to protect you from me, nor Amaimon for that matter." Mephisto's face grew increasingly sober as he regained his composure. "With that in mind, my self-control is beginning to wane, as I am sure you have noticed." Though he had calmed, there was still a wildness in the demon's green eyes. "Lucifer made a grave, grave mistake, putting me in a cell with another demon, another brother – another pack mate. Though, for his purposes, perhaps that was intentional." Mephisto looked over at Amaimon, who sat perfectly still, a nearly innocent expression on his face.

But something wasn't right. There was something behind him, near their make-shift latrine, though not touching it. Whatever it was, it was smallish and darkly coloured. Amaimon's body shielded the group's view, and as Yukio stared, it seemed he did so quite deliberately. A gut-wrenching feeling invaded Yukio then, his hunch from earlier returning ten-fold. Looking around at his students, it suddenly and painfully struck him that one of them was missing.

Konekomaru was gone.

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 **MWAHAHAHA! I feel really, really evil right now.**

 **To be fair, this entire chapter was inspired by two things – a song called _Sexual Hallucinations_ by In This Moment, (Which is actually about being high on Ecstasy, but it's kinda... creepy.) and on a rather odd horror movie that I watched all of 10 minutes of (because really, I'm a total chicken when it comes to horror movies – ironic, isn't it?) called _In The Dark_. **

**I hope you enjoyed (or, maybe didn't). Let me know in a review! I can't grow as a writer if I don't get feedback about what's working and what isn't!**

 **Until the next chapter!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Firstly, Apologies for the wait. You may want to back-read a little to get a handle on what is going on.**

 **I've been on a cross-the-country trip, and have just returned, so hopefully I'll be able to continue this.**

 **Ahahaha...what shall the group do, now that their tech-savy friend has bit the dust? It would seem that demons are perpetually incapable of not damning themselves. What shall become of them now? Read on to find out.**

 **On that note, I want to remind y'all – this is a purposefully fucked up fic, and more than one of our beloved cast is liable to either die, or else become sick, injured, or psychologically disturbed. If that bothers you, for the love of whatever you believe in, leave your bloody hate comments at the door. They aren't constructive or helpful. Thank you.**

 **Now, onwards to the continued sabotage:**

 **WARNING: Gore, violence, and demons being demons. I'm sure nothing surprises you by now.**

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 **CH VII: _Hate the game, not the players._ **

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" _He who fights with monsters should look to it that he does not become a monster;_

 _for when you gaze long into that dark abyss,_

 _the abyss also gazes into you."_

Nietzsche, _Between Good and Evil_

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"Ko...neko...maru?" Yukio whispered, mind trying to process everything too fast. When had that happened? Was he dead? Most likely. Who killed him? Why? Yukio's gaze drifted back over to Mephisto, the old demon's words echoing through his crowded mind.

 _'I certainly won't be able to protect you from myself, nor Amaimon for that matter.'_

"You..." Bon's voice came from behind Yukio, weak from shock and disbelief. "He's...dead?" In that moment, something inside of Ryuuji Suguro went full tilt – something snapped.

"Did you kill him?" He growled at Amaimon, who held his position steady.

"Yes." The answer sent a wave of movement through the group, some of which were still catching themselves up on what was happening.

"Wait," Rin said, shaking his head as if to clear it of mental debris. "Konekomaru – no, he can't be..." Rin looked at the dark form looming behind Amaimon with no small amount of denial on his face. His eyes and face quickly phased through a myriad of expressions, not the least of which was a kind of pallid nausea, before settling into a hard, unreadable expression. "Move." Rin growled.

"No."

"Move out of the way, Amaimon." Rin's voice dropped even lower. He would not take no for an answer, feeling the hair on his tail stiffen in preparation for another fight. He had to know that he knew what he though he knew. What they _all_ knew.

Amaimon shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly, deciding it wasn't worth the fight. He got up smoothly and walked away, returning, no doubt, to the side of his older sibling. In his wake, a body appeared, lying on it's side and missing the bulk of his clothes – and just like Nemu, much of his face.

"The boy was stupid." Amaimon seemed to defend himself. "He should've listened when Aniki told him not to run. But he didn't listen."

" _You..._ " Rin and Bon both barked simultaneously.

"Don't sit there and act like it was _his fault_ for this!" Ryuuji growled. "Konekomaru isn't responsible for any of this! He was an _innocent_ kid!" Bon shouted now, near-blind with rage over the death of his friend – one of the longest he'd had. He felt his muscles tremble involuntarily, and cursed under his breath when a nauseating quiver of fear squirmed up his belly like a leech. Nobody ever talked to Amaimon like that and lived long after.

"But it wasn't just me who did the killing." Amaimon said flatly. Not two, but three sets of hot, hateful eyes turned themselves onto Mephisto now, Shima joining the other two's heated stares with an incredulous, angry gaze.

"I told you didn't I?" Mephisto stated calmly. "My self control is waning. Demons are not especially social creatures in the way that humans are, but we do form creches when young – or when prey is abundant." His calm facade continued as he shrugged. "I tried to tell you."

No warning was offered this time. Not a growl, not a snarl, not an outcry. In the next second, Rin took off at alarming speed, his goal obvious – he might not be able to use his flames, but he could use his fists, and right now, that was good enough for him – he figured with Mephisto's speed, he'd only get one good shot, but with the demon's delicate framework, one really good hit was all it would take.

But Rin was hardly in the state of mind to consider his circumstances or inspect them closely, and though, somewhere in the back of his mind, he half expected Amaimon to interfere, he didn't expect him to do so _so violently_. One minute, Rin was hurtling towards the pretty face of their headmaster, prepared to deal with whatever pain came his way for doing it; being the noble creature he was, there was no way Rin could let his friend's passing go unpunished, irregardless of the cause – nor the sickening guilt gnawing at his shamefully satisfied stomach. But it appeared that Amaimon wasn't going to have it, and slammed his _entire body_ into Rin's with enough force to completely wind him – and perhaps crack a few bones. In the next second, he hit the steel wall of their micro-prison with a sickening _crack_ followed by a loud, hollow _boom_ as the steel bent beneath the weight of his impact.

 _"Rin!"_ Shiemi cried, her guts twisting agonizingly in her stomach as she watched a limp and floppy Rin hit the ground with a _smack_ , seemingly dazed or unconscious from the blow. The sound of the metal bending still rang in everyone's ears, though it didn't stop Shura from being the one to act this time.

"Rin! RIN!" She cried, rushing to his side. She immediately checked his pulse, fearing that the sickening crack she heard had been his skull. It seemed his head was alright, so she began examining his ribs – and was promptly ripped away by her arm, yanked hard enough to numb the limb immediately as the nerves were stretched beyond their normal range of motion.

" _Ow_!" She tried desperately to keep herself oriented as she was dragged, then _thrown_ away from her student. Pain exploded all over her face as it met the steel floor _hard_.

" _Don't interfere_." Amaimon hissed, indicating to her that he'd been the one to throw her. Typical of him.

" _You leave her alone_!" Yukio tried to defend Shura, prepared in spite of his better judgment to throw himself between them. But he knew better than to presume he could be the hero – he knew he should've kept his mouth shut. By the time the thought crossed his mind though, it was too late.

" _AaaAAAAHHH_!" He screamed when the younger demon came upon him in an instant, pushing him to the ground and mounting atop him, the full weight of the heavy earth demon balancing upon his fragile sternum, threatening to break his ribs as he gasped for air. His efforts to breathe were impeded further when a clawed hand found his throat, clasping it with bruising force.

"After I was so nice to you in that dream of yours." Amaimon chided. "Tsk, this is the thanks I get?" The demon looked annoyed as he pressed his heels into Yukio's chest painfully, the pressure on the exorcist's ribs becoming more acute – and more painful.

"I could collapse your ribcage with ease, you know." Amaimon stated matter-of-factly. "So maybe you should learn from this experience and show a bit more _respect_ in the future, _ne_?" Amaimon bent down to say the words lowly to his trapped prey, his distribution of weight shifting so that his heels no longer dug into the cartilage of the human's ribs. In the next moment, the exorcist was freed from the demon's grasp as Amaimon stepped off of him and off to the side, leaving Yukio to gasp violently for air. The pain in his ribs lingered, making breathing feel as though a thousand needles were piercing his sides.

"You...you _monsters_!" Izumo, driven to tears, expressed a rare flood of emotion.

" – Yes, indeed, we _are_ monsters," Mephisto interjected before she could continue, uttering the words as a venomous hiss. "And you, unfortunately, are just a little girl. A little _human_." The demon sighed exasperatedly, standing at last from his position on the floor. " I told you once, didn't I?" He frowned. " We are the predators, and you are the prey. If you _run_ , if you _cower,_ if you fight or flee or _act_ like the lambs you are," He paused a moment, flashing his fangs to Izumo. "Then you'll be _hunted_ like one, and devoured."

"You...really are a demon...no, a _devil_...aren't you?"

"Rin!" Shiemi called, hearing his weak voice from where he lied on the floor. "Are you okay?"

"I...will be fine..." He groaned, slowly rising to his knees. Shiemi wanted to cry as she watched him heave a deep shudder through his body while doing so, clearly in immense pain.

"Fufufu... I'll hand it to you little brother, you're tough." Amaimon jeered, a rare smirk coming onto his face.

"Amaimon, _enough_." Mephisto ordered, causing the younger demon's expression to falter as he looked over to his sibling.

"But he's being a pain. Can't I rough him up a bit?"

"He's barely standing as it is. Let him alone. You've done enough as it is."

"Aren't you responsible too?" Yukio, winded, asked aggressively, feeling his hair bristle in spite of himself. _'Get a grip, Yukio! They're going to kill you next if you don't pay attention!'_ "Amaimon said he wasn't the only one that killed Konekomaru. _What did you do_?" Yukio hissed coldly, fighting the urge to bear the infrequent fangs he had.

"You don't want to know the answer to that question." Mephisto replied coolly. "But let's just say you'll be glad I did...eventually."

"Glad?" Bon snarled menacingly, brow furrowed tight. "You expect us to be _grateful_ you killed our friend, you _sick_ bastard?!"

" _Yes_. Because if I hadn't, we wouldn't be breaking out of this prison cell any time soon." Once more caught off guard by the abrupt purposefulness of their headmaster's actions, all the exwires could do was stare expectantly.

"The loss of Miwa Konekomaru was not one I anticipated, nor one I had hoped for. He was, after all, the most tech-savvy of us – or had you forgotten who was supposed to be wiring through that cell signal?" Mephisto spoke to his students as if they were precisely that – small, stupid children in need of a thorough lesson. "He was the weakest of you, and has fallen prey to demons before, so I can't imagine it is _so shocking_ that he was the first to die." The demon spoke with a sour sarcasm, indicative of growing impatience. " But that aside, I've gained something valuable from his death – and so, by extension, have you. It will take a little time, but we should be able to escape soon."

"And just how do you plan on doing that, huh?" Shura, who clutched her bruised and bleeding face, said tiredly. "I'm getting really sick of this bullshit, Mephisto!" She barked. "Demon or not, the least you could do was give us a better explanation than simply telling us, telling _them_ , to sit and wait it out."

"Are you all _stupid_ , or did you forget?" Mephisto replied, voice clipped. " _Nothing_ we do in this room is private." He jerked a thumb towards the forgotten camera and intercom aggressively. "There are eyes and ears in here that have no business with our business. So _no_ , Ms. Kirigakure, I'm afraid I can't afford to be less clandestine." A wry, pointed smirk was thrown her way, concealing within it a threat, as well as an unwelcome invitation. _Shut up, or buck up and fight me_ the look seemed to say. She didn't take it lightly.

"You're an A-class asshole." She murmured dejectedly, but chose not to fight him further.

"I'll take that as a compliment in this situation." Shura growled at his reply.

"No...I can't!..." Rin started, trying to stand without a lot of success, eventually relying on the wall to support him. "I can't accept this!" He argued. "Konekomaru is dead, and you're all just going to _accept_ that?"

"Shut up Okumura!" Bon snapped. "No one's accepting _anything_ except that we are still at a severe disadvantage against those guys!" Ryuuji stood, striding deliberately towards the half demon. "Look at yourself, Rin!" He shouted now, temper getting the best of him. "The only reason you're still standing is because you're half _demon_ yourself! Had that been one of us, we'd be dead! just like..." Bon trailed off, voice catching in his throat. Ryuuji Suguro was not one to cry when he could help it – but this was not one of those times.

"Bon?" Shima offered quietly. The tall, proud exorcist known as Ryuuji, who knew too much about too many things, could not handle himself any longer. There was only so much a man could take – and dammit, this was more than what most _men_ could handle, never mind just a kid like him. And with that, Suguro finally caved beneath the weight of his own feelings, letting them crash down on him like a giant wave; and once the tears began their descent down his pale face, there was nothing he could do to stop them.

 _'That's right. We're just kids. We're all just kids – hell, the oldest one here is Shura, and she's just barely an adult.'_ Ryuuji looked over at her briefly. On her face was a sorrowful expression, a kind of anguish that visibly went deeper than the surface – it was like looking into a narrow pool of water that you couldn't see the bottom of. And the more he watched the varying faces of loss and even confusion in his surrounding teammates, the deeper and darker that pool seemed to get.

 _'Let's hope this is all over soon. I don't know how much more I can take. How much any of us can take.'_

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Mephisto watched contemplatively as his students each took their turn, shedding salty-smelling tears in a way he didn't think he'd ever understand. He understood that the behavior meant sadness or pain, but failed to reconcile those same feelings within himself. Who knew, maybe he wasn't capable of doing so, despite having a kind of cognitive empathy for his students.

He didn't feel guilty for what he'd done, but wasn't happy about it either. Miwa had been an important part of his chess board, a glimmering knight that he could reasonably rely upon to keep human morality in check. While those rules might not have any significance to him, he did realize they meant something to the humans themselves. The fact that all his students were, in one way or another, upset over the death of their classmate made sense to him, at least in that respect. Having said that, he could hardly blame them for hating him for doing it; they didn't and _couldn't_ really know or understand with any sort of competency exactly what the value _was_ in taking his life – what the value was in taking his _soul_. They were, after all, mere humans – and in a similar way as Mephisto realized that he was lacking in the emotional capacity department relative to them, he also understood that _they_ were lacking in the same kind of rationality and logic-based decision making which came so naturally to his kind. Emotions were a deep, integral part of most human interaction; while this made them easy to manipulate, it also made them incredibly dangerous and unstable creatures prone to reacting with violence upon a whim. And to know that he was basically powerless in a situation like this one, where he was ultimately held responsible for their feelings... to say that it didn't, on a primordial level, _frighten_ him, would have been a lie.

The proof was in Amaimon's actions. His little brother was becoming exceedingly ballsy and rambunxious – something which made him all the more anxious about his own situation. Amaimon had attacked him, challenged him, because he sensed, more than rationally knew, that his sibling was growing weaker. And as Mephisto became more and more dire in his straights, so Amaimon became the perfect meter for his thinning facade. The less composure Mephisto had, the less restraint Amaimon showed. It was the mirroring effect, one common among social creatures, even those as selectively social as demons. As the hard-earned image that the headmaster had presented to his students thus far began to lose it's effect, so too did the effect of his hierarchical position over Amaimon. He had won a fight with his younger sibling already, and his position in the dominance scale was secured – Amaimon wasn't stupid enough to come to blows with him again in the near future. But he was, unfortunately, stupid enough to begin blatantly disobeying Mephisto, and that was what had ultimately gotten Konekomaru killed.

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 **Things are becoming less and less stable. Mephisto is descending faster than he knows how to handle – and now Rin, suffering in several different ways, has to come to terms with his situation as both a predator and potential prey.**

 **I can not guarantee a quick update, but I will try to come around to it soon.**


	9. Chapter 9

**I'm baaaaaaaack!**

 **And with a super angsty, slightly OOC chapter too!**

 **Don't you guys just love me?**

 **Well, this journey is about to it's halfway point, possibly shorter. I may consider a sequel depending on how it ends.**

 **Also, I know I said no YukioxRin, but in an attempt to appease the larger audience, I have inserted a kind of maybe-there something for you guys, who've been a great audience so far. My way of awkwardly saying thank you.**

 **On with the intense drama!**

 **WARNING: Some intense scenes lie ahead, emotionally and gorily. If you want to blame something, blame Devilman: Crybaby, because it's basically about a half demon who goes insane and who's best friend is literally Satan.**

 **You're welcome.**

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 **CH IX: _Blood in the eyes_**

" _All our blood_

 _lying on the floor..._

 _Sense the crowd_

 _expecting something more..._

 _Opened up, proudly on display –_

 _What we tried so **hard** to **hide away**." _

_~ Spaces In Between,_ How To Destroy Angels.

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Two more days passed on – the plants Shiemi could conjure started small and effectively useless, but were slowly nearing the point of edibility. The moss had blanketed half the room by now, surviving stubbornly off of condensation and urine, which it did remarkably well at re-purposing. A few small, frail-looking bamboo shoots tried to grow in the moss – Shiemi figured that they were edible enough, and that the mature plant would also serve to assist their escape, since bamboo could grow through just about anything if it was really trying.

She kept from the others that the shoots were also super sharp and hard, but kept the thought in the back of her mind.

On the fore of her mind now, however, was Rin – and not necessarily in a good way. The boy had been acting strange all night, keeping her up with a constant rustling and shifting about. She felt her heart softly land upon her stomach at the thought. None of them were too eager to sleep since Konekomaru died – too afraid of the idea that any one of them could be preyed upon next. Shiemi got the feeling that's what had kept Rin up, too –

" _...As of now, you are competition for resources...Best you make up your mind what you are, before I do it for you."_ Mephisto had said that Rin would be among the first to die, since he posed the greatest competition...so why wasn't he dead? Was it just dumb luck that Rin evaded being killed by their headmaster instead of Konekomaru? Or was he purposefully spared? Did it have to do with his heritage?

Shiemi shook her head lightly to clear it. She shouldn't be thinking about things like that. But it wasn't just her empty stomach making her abdomen ache – the thought ate at her, somehow. She didn't know what was going on, but she was growing suspicious about Mephisto's intentions – especially since now, with the light barely having flickered on to signal the dawn (or what they knew of it), Rin was eerily quiet.

 _'That's a strange way of thinking about it...'_ Shiemi realized with a frown. _'Just what about him is...eerie?'_ A little alarm bell rang in her skull. Something seemed terribly off just then. She scanned her surroundings, and seen that Rin was curled up on his haunches in one corner of the room, near the makeshift moss lavatory, far and facing away from everyone else. His tail, normally flicking about or just openly lounging, was tucked close to his side and held in a stiff fashion. And yet, though his muscles were held into a rigid attitude, he didn't seem...quite _there_ , if she were to guess of it. There was an awkward kind of conflict in the message his body sent her, for though he was tense through his core, his appendages, such as his hands, were held to his knees perfectly restful. The only outward sign of tension aside from the board like flatness of his back was his tail, held at sickle like curve which she couldn't guess the meaning of.

"Rin?" Shiemi called to him quietly. Yukio, looking like he'd been awake for hours, looked over at his brother with a tired expression. Shiemi looked hard at Rin, indicating silently through an urgency in her eyes that Yukio should do the same. She just couldn't shake the growing sense that something was terribly wrong. The concerned look on her face registered to Yukio after a few tired blinks, and at once he looked quite awake and alert, looking at Rin with growing suspicion in his gaze.

"Rin?" Yukio also called to him – but neither of them got any response. He held still in a nearly statue-like fashion, almost as though ice had come in the night to freeze him in his pose. He didn't seem quite tense, but rather _stiff_. Shiemi didn't understand it.

But Yukio did.

Yukio knew that Rin was only ever frozen like that when he was A) exceedingly upset about something, and didn't want to talk about it, B) _extra_ exceptionally angry to the point of not being _able_ to talk about it, (which rarely happened, but he'd seen it once before) or C) when he was sick or hurt _very_ badly and was trying not to puke, faint or cry from the pain.

He didn't waste any time, and went straight to Rin's side, worried it would be the latter after the head-banging injury he'd sustained a few days ago. He acted relatively fine – had even made a goofball of himself slipping on the moss yesterday, which had got him out of his gloomy mood following Konekomaru's passing. But now he seemed affectedly worse, and for a moment Yukio was concerned that he may have sustained some sort of head trauma.

Seeing that Rin wasn't responding to verbal stimuli, Yukio touched his hand lightly against Rin's back – and immediately jumped about a foot backwards as a low, guttural _growl_ reverberated from his sibling's chest.

"Rin?" No response. Yukio startled himself when his hand, the one he'd reached out to his brother with, began to shake. "Rin, are you alright?" Yukio pleaded. Shura came up beside Yukio, offering a supportive hand as he rose back to his feet. There was a sense of danger in her stance, and Yukio listened obediently when her hand pulled him back.

"H...ry..." Rin mumbled, his arms crossed over his mouth.

"Rin?" Yukio asked again, this time for clarification.

" _Hungry_..." Rin replied after a moment, his voice barely above a whisper. "So...Hungry..."

The dawning of realization spread over Yukio's face before it instantly twisted into a carefully unreadable expression.

"I'm hungry too, Nii-san." Yukio reassured – and it was true. He hadn't eaten anything except...except that meat, in four days. He, however, was trained to become comfortable, more or less, with hunger pains; Father Fujimoto made sure of that. But Rin lacked that same training, and had a higher metabolism to boot.

"N-no...You don't understand..." Rin said quietly. Yukio jumped a little as his heart crashed into his stomach at his brothers tone, which was nothing short of distressed.

"What don't I understand, Rin? Talk to me." Yukio brought out his gentle side, hoping to coax his sibling into some sense of normalcy. The look of alarm in Shiemi's eyes, and Shura's alert stance behind him made sense now, though how their instincts picked up on it before his did he didn't know. What he did know, however, was that something was _definitely_ wrong about this.

Rin heaved a breath, his abdomen tensing in a way that _looked_ painful.

"I just want to eat." He whined, and Yukio could tell before even smelling them that Rin was in tears.

 _'So I was right, in a way. But at least he's not injured – just...'_ Yukio stopped his thought a moment, not wanting it to go on, though naturally it did anyway. _' ...starving.'_

Against his better judgment, having been growled at already, Yukio came up behind Rin and in an unexpected move even for him, wrapped his arms around his older brother. He didn't want Rin to think we was alone right now, didn't want him to get too upset –didn't want him to lose his grip. To slip up and wind up hurting someone, wind up killing them. Or to get himself killed in the process.

 _'I told you this was going to happen...I told them all this was going to happen.'_

"I'm hungry, Yukio. My stomach hurts...it hurts really bad. My head, too. I can't...I can't think straight." He was now on the verge of hysteria – not good.

"Rin, calm down. Part of your pain might be because you're upset – you normally flame up by now, but you can't do that here. Just calm down and you'll be fine." The subtle urgency of his tone caught the eyes of the others, who now watched the two go down with cautious, ready stares. Shura gave Yukio a look that said she was prepared to interfere if necessary. _Don't,_ Yukio mouthed silently at her. _Don't stare at him, it will make it worse_ he mouthed to the rest as they looked on suspiciously.

"But I'm dizzy, and my head really hurts right now." As if on cue, Rin wobbled a bit, finally sitting down on the moss beneath him, his head weaving side to side in a sickly-looking way. Yukio went around to get a look at his face, and felt his heart pound in his chest as he got a good look at his eyes. Not only were his pupils reduced to eliptical slits, indicating a surge in his demon energy, but his sclera, the whites of his eyes, were a tinted _red_ colour, as though blood had seeped into them.

A wave of panic hit Yukio like a truck. Was his brother sick? Was he using too much of his energy, and the meter in his abdomen causing this? Was he going to die – or worse, get killed for food by those greedy demons? Yukio dare not look their way, not caring to find out if that was their intention.

"Your blood sugar is really low right now, Rin. Give it a while, and your body should straighten things out." Yukio tried to sound reassuring, but a subtle quiver of the panic he felt crept into his voice, and Rin's eyes focused on him worriedly.

"Yukio, are you okay?" _'I'm the one that should be asking you that, dork.'_

"I'm fine – but..." Yukio shut his mouth, not wanting to send Rin into a fit.

It didn't really work.

"But what, Yukio? What's the matter?" Just then, a small trickle of blood worked down Rin's cheek from his left eye, and as Yukio's own eyes instinctively followed it, Rin noticed. Feeling the droplet with his fingertips, he pulled his hand back to look, and instantly paled.

"Am I...?"

"No." Yukio said firmly. "You're _not_ going to die. But you _need_ to calm down, Rin. I think that meter inside of you is taking too much of your energy. It's making you _sick_." The aura of the room changed, and the sudden sense of unease did not go unnoticed by the half demon.

"Rin, calm down, or you really _will_ die." Rin's breathing increased as he began to panic, looking around as if for an escape. Before his brother could do something unnecessarily stupid, Yukio pounced on him, holding him tight to his chest.

"Shhh..." Yukio took a deep breath to slow his own heart down, hoping Rin's would follow. Yukio might have thought of his sibling as a pain in his ass, but he'd already seen the death of two of his classmates – he didn't honestly think he could handle his twin dying, not in _here_ , not like this. Rin shifted a bit in his arms, pressing his face against Yukio's skin, his breathing becoming deeper and more even, but not much slower. "Calm." Yukio reassured, but was thrown off his game when Rin's breathing suddenly stopped. Before a complete thought on it could form, a sharp, stabbing pain erupted in his collarbone. Yukio winced, but forcibly kept himself from saying anything about it, biting his own tongue. A deep breath followed, and then another when a disturbing feeling of a tongue moving over the wound could be identified. "Shhhh..." Yukio...wanted to cry. Right then, right there, he felt the hot, salty fluid sting the corners of his eyes, and couldn't completely keep them from welling as he was dealt another bite on the lower corner of his neck.

He hadn't an idea why his sibling was biting him, but whatever it was, he was sure he didn't want to think about it. _'I want to panic, to run, to flee...and yet, I don't want my brother to die. I never wanted him to die. To hurt him, maybe...perhaps that's what this is. Yes.'_ Yukio mentally reassured himself. _'It's just payback, that's all it is. I made him bleed before...granted, I didn't_ _ **drink**_ _it, –'_ Yukio's stomach lurched at the idea. _' – but fair is fair I guess.'_ A firm tug at his flesh alerted Yukio to the potential danger of the situation. But rather than be afraid of it, he felt weirdly _calm_. He leaned close, whispering low in his brother's ear.

"Rin, that's enough now." He said it calmly as he felt, stroking his older brother's hair as he gradually detached.

"Good." He could sense, somehow, the panic rising in Rin again. "No no, stay calm. It's fine. Really, it's okay. I'm not upset, see?" Rin leaned back to look at Yukio's face, which was a lot more placid than he'd expected.

"But...I..."

"Like I said." Yukio didn't dare let him finish, not wanting to face the reality himself. "Your blood sugar, and probably your blood iron levels, are low right now. That's going to make you really hungry –make you feel like you're about to die of starvation. But I promise, you're not."

The others looked on with mixed feelings of horror and surprise, though no one felt it more than Ryuuji at that moment. Even Shiemi, though clearly in shock, also had an expression of pained understanding – but all Bon wanted to do was gag. Gag, and run far, far away from this place. The image of Yukio wincing with tears in his eyes and the sound of Rin suckling on what was doubtlessly something wet and sticky – and now that he'd pulled away, the sight of the bright, bloody crimson dripping in rivulets down Yukio's shirt and chest, staining his uniform an dark, wet colour...

It was all he could do not to puke. It was real now. Too real. He couldn't stop the shaking as it started in his hands and travelled up to his spine, wracking his body with shudder after shudder. He looked to Shima, who looked, for all intents and purposes, like he was about to puke as well – but it was an entirely different breed of disgust in his eyes, one which threatened to make Ryuuji very angry, for right now was not the time to be worrying about shit like that. But upon reflection, he calmed – Shima was Shima in any situation, it seemed. In a way, the thought was comforting.

"..." Yukio glanced over at Konekomaru's remains, noting that there was just enough meat left on it...but that it had probably gone past what was humanly safe to eat.

"Rin, you need to eat..." Yukio suggested to his sibling quietly. "I know," he added quickly, seeing some resistance in his brother's too-blue eyes. "...I know that you don't want to. But you need to eat, or you'll just keep getting sicker."

Rin offered no reply, but let his head fall until his hair covered up his expression. He heard a sob to his side, and knew it was Shiemi crying. Looking breifly at her face, he found not the terror he anticipated, but fear of another kind. A fear that, he felt, was directed at him, for him. However, rather than being comforted by her concern for him, he instead felt agitated by her response. _' you should stay away from me. You all should stay away. I wont blame anyone for hating me after this.'_ He heaved a deep sigh, feeling something sticky catch at the bottom of his lungs. He hoped it wasn't blood, but was dually aware that it probably was.

 _'What have I become?'_ He thought. _'I'm going to die here if I don't eat something...but I'll die if I do, too – not in body, but in mind; I feel like something is happening to me, like there's some creature deep inside that is begging to be let out – but if I release it, I'll flame up, and die. What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to survive?'_ He looked at Konekomaru's corpse with dread.

' _...I guess...I'll just have to eat...without losing control...'_

Shiemi heard movement behind her, turning to see Izumo sitting placidly against the wall. Her face was surprisingly expressionless as she watched Rin shamble over to the remains, pawing at a stripped ribcage which to her now held no meaning. It was just a pile of bones to her now – a pile which became increasingly appealing as the days went by. At the time of Nemu's death, she didn't have the gall to call herself a cannibal, deciding last minute to sacrifice her offering to Yukio, who divided it between himself and Shura. But now, watching Rin struggle to keep himself together, she felt the strings of primitive urges strike her in the belly, blow after blow. She hadn't eaten in several days, and her vision now swam with every weakened movement. She knew a human could live for up to three or four weeks without food – but living and surviving were different situations. She dared a glance at Mephisto, sitting statuesque against the opposite wall, and wondered with a daring calmness if he would come after her next. Looking to Shiemi, she was helplessly amazed – the girl was standing, at the very least. Something which Izumo didn't feel like she could do right then. The effort to shift about was becoming too much for her these days, and a slow, creeping thought came into her mind. _'Am I dying? What if I don't make it to tomorrow? What will my sister think?'_ As the days wore by, she retreated more and more into her thoughts, a thing which had seemed to go unnoticed by the others for the most part. _'Maybe that's a good thing.'_ she thought. _'Maybe I can just slip away quietly, and no one will know...'_ A mild headache had been forming in her skull overnight, and as she watched Rin painstakingly pick at the dessicated remains of a skeleton she pretended not to recognize, she felt the tug of sleep pull at the back of her neck, inviting her into it's warm and peaceful embrace. _'Maybe it's a good thing...'_

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 **Short chapter I know, but an update is an update!**

 **I have bigger things planned for the next scene, which is why I'm converting it into it's own chapter, lest this one is too long.**

 **Also, THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR OVERWHELMING SUPPORT! I have never had this many people follow/favourite a story before, so THANK YOU!**

 **Hope to see y'all soon. :) Happy new year!**


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